Plane made mayday call seconds before crash

Two seconds before impact, the last man conscious in the cockpit of a doomed Cypriot airliner made a desperate call for help – “Mayday, Mayday” – before the plane carrying 121 people smashed into a mountain near Athens.

Chief investigator Akrivos Tsolakis said the man – believed to be a flight attendant with pilot training – twice issued distress calls in the final 10 minutes of Helios Airways Flight 522.