Dozens of people ‘were still alive before airliner crashed’

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.

Coroner Fillipos Koutsaftis said that co-pilot Pambos Haralambous was alive when the Helios Airways jet crashed Sunday near Grammatiko, 25 miles north of Athens, killing everyone on board.

The pilots of two Greek F-16 fighter jets that intercepted the plane after it lost contact with Greek air traffic controllers reported seeing Haralambous slumped over the controls in the cockpit, apparently unconscious, shortly before the crash.

They said the plane’s German pilot was not in the cockpit, and his body has not been found. The fighter pilots reported seeing oxygen masks dangling from the ceiling.

The bodies of Haralambous and a flight attendant were found next to the cockpit wreckage, said Akrivos Tsolakis, head of the Greek airline safety committee.

“The immediate cause of death of these people was through injuries, from their wounds. They were alive as the plane was falling,” another coroner, Nikos Karagoukis, part of a six-person team carrying out the autopsies, said.

“What we can determine is whether they fainted or went into a coma from the inhalation of a toxic substance.” The results of toxicological tests to determine if they were knocked out by toxic fumes or gases, such as carbon monoxide, would take about two weeks.

Officials also said they found only the exterior container of the cockpit voice recorder from the Boeing 737-300, hampering investigative efforts into the accident’s cause.

The voice recorder’s internal components were ejected from the container when the plane crashed, Tsolakis said.

“The only fortunate event in the investigation is that we have the flight data recorder,” he said.

American experts, including a representative of the plane’s manufacturer, were providing assistance.

The voice recorder picks up any conversation inside the cockpit but saves only the last 30 minutes of sound. Because the airplane appeared to have been flying disabled for several hours, it was unclear how useful any recovered conversations would be for investigators. The plane might have run out of fuel after flying for nearly three hours on autopilot.

Aviation experts said they were puzzled by the crash. They said warnings should go off if an airliner suddenly loses pressure, and pilots are trained to immediately put their oxygen masks on and dive to about 12,000 feet, where there’s enough oxygen for people to breathe.

Experts said people could lose consciousness for a variety of reasons on board an aircraft like fumes from the engine, hydraulic or oil fluids etc.

“These things possibly could have an impact, I just don’t buy it,” said Chris Yates, an aviation analyst with Jane’s Transport.

“Depressurisation could have left those on board alive, but unconscious,” Mr Yates said.

Coroner Nikos Karakousis, one of a team of medical examiners, also did not rule out depressurisation as a possible cause for unconsciousness.

“We can’t reject the scenario of mild hypoxemia because of gradual and slow depressurisation.

“In this case, the blood goes slowly into the brain, so this scenario has to be examined,” Mr Karakousis said. Hypoxemia, or low oxygen levels in the blood, can cause loss of consciousness.

In Cyprus, police raided Helios Airways offices in the coastal city of Larnaca, near the international airport.

Meanwhile, a man who claimed to have received a telephone text message from a passenger on the plane saying “Cousin, everyone is unconscious. We are all frozen... the pilot is dead... I bid you farewell” was charged yesterday with disseminating false information and filing a false report. Greek police also arrested another man late on Monday on suspicion that he was the hoax caller.