Athens plane crash kills 121
14.08.05
All 121 people on board a Cypriot airliner were killed when it plunged into a hill near Athens today. The crash is thought to have been caused by a drop in cabin pressure. A text message apparently sent by a passenger from the plane before the crash said that the pilots were unconscious and passengers were freezing to death.
Helios Airways officials said the plane was flying between Larnaca in Cyprus and the Czech capital Prague, with a stopover in Athens. A Greek police spokesman quoted by Reuters said of the 115 passengers, 59 adults and 8 children were heading to Athens, with 48 continuing on to Prague.
Larnaca airport authorities told Cyprus state TV a sudden drop in cabin pressure may have knocked out the pilots. Greek TV reported that a passenger sent a text message to a cousin telling him that the pilot had turned blue in the face and the plane's temperature had plummeted. 'My cousin I bid you farewell, we are all frozen,' the text message read.
The head of air traffic control at Athens airport, Iannis Pantazaratos, told AFP that authorities lost contact with the plane, and air force pilots who had been scrabbled to intercept the plane found it flying above the Euboea peninsula with the pilots slumped in the cabin. The Boeing 737 plane, carrying 115 passengers and 6 crew, crashed into the hillside near Athens at 12:20 local time.
Police and military helicopters were sent to the scene, along with dozens of ambulances.
TV pictures showed wreckage over a wide area, with firefighters dousing flames on the bare hillside. The mayor of Grammatikos, one of the towns near the crash site, said only the tail was recognisable.
A Greek government spokesman said the first indication was that the crash was an accident. The plane's black box recorders have been recovered, although one was badly damaged. There are no reports of survivors.
Helios Airways was founded in 1999 as Cyprus' first independent airline. It operates a fleet of Boeing 737 jets between Cyprus and London Gatwick, Athens, Sofia, Dublin and Strasbourg in France.
