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Flight on autopilot that took 121 to death
MICHAEL THEODOULOU IN NICOSIA

AN INVESTIGATION into one of the world's most mysterious air disasters, which saw a packed plane cruise on autopilot before crashing into a mountainside, has blamed human error.

The plane, a Boeing 737-300, en route from Cyprus to Prague, flew on autopilot with most of the 121 passengers and crew unconscious from oxygen deprivation before it ran out of fuel and crashed.

The accident report said the two pilots had failed to notice that the cabin's pressurisation switch was in the wrong position and then did not identify correctly automatic signals warning of a disastrous drop in cabin pressure.

Two Greek air force F-16 fighter planes that scrambled to shadow the drifting airliner as it approached Athens were greeted by an eerie spectacle. The pilot's seat was empty and that of his first officer occupied by a man slumped over his controls.

The fighter pilots, who accompanied the stricken plane for half an hour, then watched impotently as a man staggered into the cockpit and made a brave but doomed attempt to rescue Helios Flight ZU 522.

He was Andreas Prodromou, a 25-year-old flight attendant and aspiring pilot who had some flight training. He was originally not scheduled to work that day, only agreeing to put in a shift because his girlfriend was working on the flight.

The crash on 14 August last year was the deadliest air disaster in the history of Cyprus and Greece. Most of the victims were Greek Cypriots. The tragedy touched virtually everyone on the island, which has a population of less than a million people.

Relatives of the victims in Cyprus said those responsible should be brought to justice.

"I hope that it helps [bring closure]", Nicolas Yiasoumis, who lost his brother, sister-in-law and nine-year-old niece in the crash, said. "We want to know the exact reasons for the disaster and for those who are responsible to be brought to justice."

A synopsis of the investigation report, prepared by Akrivos Tsolakis, the head of Greece's National Aviation Safety Board, listed three "direct causes" for the crash. The two pilots had failed to notice during checks before and after take-off that the "cabin pressurisation mode selector" was in the manual position. Had the switch been set to automatic, it would have allowed the cabin to pressurise by itself.

After take-off, the plane failed to pressurise and the two pilots failed to recognise "the warnings and reasons for the activation of the warnings", including a cabin altitude warning horn and the dropping of oxygen masks.

When the cabin pressure failed, the 59-year-old German pilot and his 50-year-old Greek Cypriot co-pilot were incapacitated from loss of oxygen and the plane continued on autopilot until it eventually ran out of fuel and crashed into a wooded hillside some miles north-west of Athens' international airport.

The plane encountered apparent difficulties shortly after take-off from Larnaca, the report said. As it climbed through 16,000ft, the captain contacted Helios's operations centre to report a "take-off configuration warning" and an equipment cooling problem.

Communication about the problems continued over the next eight minutes, but ended as the aircraft moved through 28,900ft. "Thereafter, there was no response to radio calls to the aircraft," the report said. During the climb oxygen masks had deployed. It is not clear how many passengers had donned these before passing out.

The F-16 fighter planes that approached the airliner saw oxygen masks "dangling", but the report said they had also seen three seated and motionless passengers wearing masks. The report added that one of the F-16 pilots saw a person not wearing an oxygen mask entering the cockpit and taking the captain's seat. The man was not named in the new report's summary, but is assumed to be Mr Prodromou, the flight attendant.

Greek investigators in December said Mr Prodromou had used an emergency oxygen kit, opened the cockpit door using a code and had managed to fly the plane for ten to 12 minutes before it crashed from lack of fuel.

Post-mortem examinations carried out after the accident showed that many of the passengers were alive when they hit they ground.
Three hours to disaster - timeline of the stricken plane

9:07 - Cyprus time (7.07 am London) Helios flight ZU522 departs Larnaca for Prague via Athens.

9:20 - As the plane climbs through 16,000 feet, the captain reports a take-off configuration warning and a problem with the equipment cooling system. There are a series of communications with the Operations Centre for another eight minutes. The plane has now climbed to 28,900 feet. The doomed aircraft does not respond to any more radio calls.

10:21 - The plane flies over the Greek island of Kea.

11:24 -The plane is intercepted by two Greek F-16 aircraft.

11:32 - The pilot on one of the F-16s notices the captain is not in his seat.

11:49 - The F-16 pilot sees a man, understood to be a flight steward, enter the aircraft's cockpit, sit in the captain's seat and try to regain control of the plane.

11:50 - The aircraft's left engine flames out.

11:50 - Two Mayday messages are transmitted from the stricken plane.

12:00 - The right engine flames out at an altitude of 7,100 feet.

12:03 - Disaster as the plane crashes into hilly terrain near the village of Grammatiko about 20 miles north west of Athens International Airport.