THE co-pilot and a flight attendant were among dozens of people still alive when a Cypriot airliner plunged into the mountains north of Athens, deepening the mystery over what incapacitated the flight carrying 121 people.

The Cypriot airliner that crashed in Greece may have suffered a sudden loss of cabin pressure at high altitude, causing temperatures and oxygen levels to plummet and leaving everyone aboard suffocating and freezing to death, experts said yesterday.

Greece’s worst plane crash, in which 121 people died yesterday, appeared to have been caused by a sudden drop in oxygen.

AN INVESTIGATION began last night into an aviation “great escape” which saw all 297 passengers and 12 crew survive a plane crash at Toronto airport.