Sixteenth anniversary of Helios air disaster

Saturday marks 16 years since Cyprus’ Helios Airways Boeing 737 crashed on a hillside near Athens on August 14, 2005, killing all 115 passengers and six crew on board, making it the worst air tragedy on Greek soil.

The plane, en route from Larnaca to Prague via Athens, lost contact with the Nicosia air traffic control shortly before it entered Greek air space.

Two Greek F-16 fighter jets were sent to intercept the plane after it failed to respond to calls from Athens’ control tower. What they saw was the captain’s seat empty, the person in the first officer’s seat slumped over the controls and three passengers visible were motionless, wearing oxygen masks while other masks were dangling from overhead units. The only movement witnessed by the F-16 pilots was junior steward, Andreas Prodromou who had managed to open the bullet proof cockpit door and attempt to take control of the plane. Clutching a portable oxygen mask, he was heard calling “mayday”.

The plane was on autopilot circling over Athens and with a fuel capacity to fly only up to three hours. Just after midday the airplane crashed into a hillside near the village of Grammatiko, 25 miles from Athens, five miles northeast of the Athens airport “Eleftherios Venizelos”, killing all people on board.
On February 2, 2013, a Court of Appeals in Athens convicted three of the four defendants in the Helios air disaster. Helios director Demetris Pantazis, flight operations director Andreas Kikkides and chief pilot Ianko Stoimenov were found guilty of manslaughter with conscious negligence, a misdemeanour.

Chief engineer Alan Irwin, the fourth defendant, who had checked the aircraft before the doomed flight, was found not guilty.

The three executives were given the option to pay €73,000 each instead of serving their ten-year jail sentence which they did.

In Cyprus, the case, which was before the Nicosia Assize Court, was suspended following the Athens ruling. All charges were dismissed and the defendants acquitted.