Child lived only a second after Cypriot plane crash

A five-year-old boy who was aboard the Cypriot airliner that crashed in Greece was still alive – but only for a second – after the plane slammed into a mountainous area north of Athens, a coroner said today.

An post-mortem on the boy’s body – which was found burned – indicated he had breathed in soot from a fire sparked by the plane crash, said Nikos Kalogrias, part of a six-member team of coroners investigating Sunday’s Helios Airways plane crash that left 121 people dead.