By then the aircraft had been in the air for two hours, and it ran out of fuel before it could reach the runway. Prodromou, 25, entered the cockpit as the jet began losing altitude.Īfter trying but failing to resuscitate Merten, the fighter pilots saw the trainee pilot take over the controls himself in a bid to save the plane. He testified he also signalled people wearing oxygen masks in the passenger cabin with similar lack of response. He previously told the trial of initially receiving no response when signalling the jet in an attempt to get the pilots to follow him, then discovering the flight crew unconscious. The fighter pilots were able to watch him enter the cockpit.į-16 pilot Panayiotis Athanasopoulos was the last person to see Prodromou alive. Investigators believe Andreas Prodromou had used multiple crew oxygen cylinders to be the last conscious person on board. That input eventually came in the form of a trainee pilot working on-board as a flight attendant. The plane reached Athens International Airport - an intermediate stop in Athens was planned - by itself and then began circling the area awaiting human input. ![]() The air force reported back that the civilian craft's pilots were slumped over the controls. This design would later be cited by victims' relatives in a civil case against Boeing.Īs the unresponsive jet entered Greek airspace two F-16 fighter jets intercepted. They never checked the system before takeoff, which had undergone testing prior to flight.Īn alarm had sounded both on the ground and in the air but had been ignored by those flying, as the same alarm was used for a different problem and the pilots therefore misinterpreted the alarm. ![]() The Boeing 737's pressurisation system is believed to have been incorrectly set by maintenance and oxygen starvation had knocked out German Captain Hans-Jurgen Merten and Cypriot co-pilot Pambos Charalambous. Contact was quickly lost with the aircraft, which flew itself as far as the Greek capital on autopilot. It was headed for Prague in the Czech Republic. The Cypriot jet left Larnaca on August 14, 2005. The accident remains the worst air disaster to befall both Greece and Cyprus. They, alongside the defunct airline, had been accused of responsibility for killing 119 in a crash near Athens.Īll 121 on board Flight 522 were killed but the prosecution did not charge manslaughter in relation to the two flight crew, deeming them partially responsible for their own deaths. This computer generated image shows the unresponsive aircraft being shadowed by Greek fighter jets.Ī two-year trial concluded yesterday in Cyprus with the court in Nicosia clearing former senior staff of Helios Airways of manslaughter.
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