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Cypriot Airliner Crashes in Greece
21 minutes ago
A Cypriot airliner carrying 115 passengers and six crew members crashed north of Athens on Sunday, the Defense Ministry and fire department said.
The Helios Airways flight was headed from Larnaca, Cyprus to Athens International Airport when it crashed at about 12:20 p.m. near the coastal town of Kalamos, just north of the Greek capital.
It was unclear why the plane crashed. After losing contact with the Athens control tower, the Greek air force scrambled two F-16 fighter jets.
Witnesses told Athens radio station they saw the plane being followed by fighter jets when in went down.
Greek radio and TV stations said the air force pilots reportedly saw no movement in the cockpit of the plane before the crash. Reports said one of the pilots may have fallen ill.
Helios Airways is a privately owned Cypriot airline.
Very tragic!GotZoom said:Complete loss of cabin pressure. Most of the bodies were frozen when the searchers found them. The fighters responded when the tower could not make contact with the crew. On the fighter's second pass, they saw someone in the cockpit trying to manuever the plane.
Just at tragic accident.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/08/15/greece.crash/index.html
GotZoom said:Complete loss of cabin pressure. Most of the bodies were frozen when the searchers found them. The fighters responded when the tower could not make contact with the crew. On the fighter's second pass, they saw someone in the cockpit trying to manuever the plane.
Just at tragic accident.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/08/15/greece.crash/index.html
Black box damaged; recorder missing
At least 24 alive when Cypriot flight crashed
By Anthee Carassava
New York Times News Service
Published August 17, 2005
ATHENS -- Greek investigators struggling to unravel the events that led to the country's deadliest airline disaster said Tuesday that one of the two black boxes recovered from the wreckage was "gutted" and probably rendered useless from the severe crash.
The setback came as coroners confirmed that at least 24 people on board the Cypriot passenger plane, including its co-pilot and a flight attendant, were alive when the Boeing 737 aircraft crashed into a hillside north of Athens on Sunday.
In the course of the troubled flight, two F-16 fighters shadowed the plane and saw the co-pilot slumped over the controls, leading to speculation that he and others aboard may have passed out because of a lack of oxygen.
The medical findings Tuesday, officials said, reinforced the theory that a problem in the Helios Airways plane's oxygen system might have precipitated the crash, because a sudden loss of cabin pressure would probably have killed those aboard before impact.
Yet with 96 more charred and mangled bodies to be examined, coroners appeared reluctant to draw any definitive conclusion on the causes of the crash.
The pilot's body, considered vital for investigators, is still missing.
Greek investigators, who have teamed up with U.S. aviation experts, said Tuesday that the impact was so great that one of the black boxes crucial for understanding what happened before the plane crashed was damaged. It was situated in the rear of the aircraft and was designed to survive severe conditions, including temperatures of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Yet all that was left was the box's steel shell; the cockpit voice recorder that should have been inside was missing.
The head of the Greek airline safety committee, Akrivos Tsolakis, said the crash was the "worst accident we've ever had." He said the plane's black boxes had been recovered, containing data and voice recordings valuable for determining the cause
There are differences, and I think the first statement was shortly after the crash.Kathianne said:Yep, that is what I was referring to. There has been something strange about this from the beginning. May be nothing but difference in how countries deal with?
Mr. P said:There are differences, and I think the first statement was shortly after the crash.
The inherent problem with a crash such as this is we read about it in the media.
Let me tell you, the media knows as much about aviation as I know about brain surgery.
Often they print information as fact based solely on their opinion.
In other words you really have to take the stories with a grain of salt.
If you would like to see how involved and extensive an investigation like this is
check this link..It's the final NTSB summery on Payne Stewarts crash. ***It's Long**
http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2000/AAB0001.htm
