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| Europe |
| Cypriot Pilot Cried 'Mayday!' Two Seconds Before Crash |
| 2005-08-22 |
| EFL The last man conscious in the cockpit of a doomed Cypriot airliner made a desperate call for help — "Mayday! Mayday!" — two seconds before the plane carrying 121 people smashed into a mountain near Athens. The man, apparently a flight attendant with pilot training, twice issued distress calls in the final 10 minutes of Helios Airways Flight 522, chief investigator Akrivos Tsolakis told The Associated Press on Monday. "The second time was a couple of seconds before the crash," Tsolakis said, adding the man had "a very weak tone of voice." The report was the most comprehensive statement the government has released on the investigation since the crash. It came after pressure from the media and the airline industry for Greece and Cyprus to start answering questions about what caused the accident. Still, it remained unclear what caused the loss of cabin pressure. Greek investigators, aided by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, are continuing to probe the crash, the deadliest airline disaster for Greece and Cyprus and considered one of the most baffling in aviation history. Tsolakis presented his initial findings following analysis of flight recorders and autopsies on all 118 bodies — many still unidentified — recovered from the site. Three bodies have not been found, including that of the plane's pilot, a German. "The crash is like an explosion and the pilot's body may not necessarily have ended up close to the cockpit," Tsolakis told state-run NET television. "He may be one of the [recovered] unidentified bodies." The report appears to confirm initial suspicions that people aboard the Helios Airways plane were incapacitated by a loss of cabin pressure early in the flight at about 34,000 feet and that someone tried to save the flight shortly before it crashed. According to the report issued Monday, a man wearing an oxygen mask, believed to be 25-year-old flight attendant Andreas Prodromou, tried to steer the plane for the last 10 minutes and contact air-traffic control authorities. In his first appeal, he cried "Mayday!" three times — but the plane's communications had apparently been set to the wrong frequency, Tsolakis said. The plane crashed in Greece after circling for more than an hour in a holding pattern above the Aegean Sea island of Kea, southeast of Athens International Airport. "There are indications of technical problems in the pressurization system... There is proof that the engines of the plane stopped working because the fuel supply was exhausted, and that this was the final cause of the crash," the two-page report said. The full report on the Helios disaster is due in about six months. The government, which has said it will not comment on an ongoing investigation, has promised to make the report public. |
| Posted by:Jackal |
| #6 "...adding the man had "a very weak tone of voice." Is that a sidewinder or is he just happy to see me? |
| Posted by: Poison Reverse 2005-08-22 22:24 |
| #5 That just means they will fly on a different airline. Big deal. Investigations take time. Years even. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2005-08-22 22:01 |
| #4 Do any of you know how much Greece depends on tourism? The longer they drag this out, the less likely that the details (like shoddy maintenance or shoddy training) make it to the top ten headlines in your newspaper or on your "My Yahoo" or Google home page. It's in Greece's best interests to have this on the bottom of page 37. |
| Posted by: Darrell 2005-08-22 20:24 |
| #3 If they would only air it out. What does the Govt have to fear? Surely they're not directly involved. Trying to save the airline's reputation - or whatever their motive - is foolish if it drags on so that it creates the atmosphere for conspiracy theories - which will undoubtedly be more negative than the truth. Right? The foot-dragging boggles. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-08-22 20:08 |
| #2 I said at the start of this that the Greeks would hide the truth no matter what. Seems we are on track with that prediction. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet 0� Doom 2005-08-22 19:45 |
| #1 Decompression is still speculation and no explanation of what happened for 2.5 hours while the plane was apparently flying on auto-pilot and why did the attendant wake up after that time? I'm not big on coverup conspiracies, but I'm starting to get suspicious here. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-08-22 19:42 |