Cypriot airline cleared over jet tragedy

Four former airline staff have been cleared of manslaughter over the crash of a Cypriot airliner six years ago that killed 121 passengers.

The tragedy happened after a mid-air cabin pressure failure left both pilots and the passengers unconscious and the plane eventually plunged into a hillside after running out of fuel.

The court ruling was jeered by victims’ relatives in the island’s capital of Nicosia.

In a majority decision, a panel of three judges ruled there was no evidence presented during the two-year trial that the defendants were linked to what caused the crash. The prosecution had argued that the defendants failed to prevent the aircraft from being flown by “unsuitable and inadequate” pilots.

The judges also ruled that the prosecution failed to prove that the German pilot and his Cypriot co-pilot did not meet the minimum standards required to do their job.

The August 14 2005 crash of the Helios Airways Boeing 737-300 on a hillside north of Athens sent shockwaves through Cyprus from where it had been on a flight to Prague via Athens.

Greek investigators have said human error was to blame for the crash, which raised international curiosity about the peculiar circumstances under which it unfolded. Investigators established that cabin pressure failure knocked out the pilots soon after takeoff from Larnaca airport.

The aircraft reached Athens on autopilot, but crashed after running out of fuel. A Greek fighter pilot scrambled to intercept the unresponsive jet reported seeing a man who managed to stay conscious enter the flight deck and try to pilot the plane, but to no avail.

The judges referred to evidence suggesting that despite an alarm, the pilots had apparently failed to notice and adjust – either before or after takeoff – a switch that would have automatically pressurised the cabin during the flight.

Post mortem tests showed that all the passengers were alive at the time of impact, but were in a deep comatose state because of the prolonged lack of oxygen.

The defendants included former managing director of Helios Airways Demetris Pantazis, the airline’s former chief executive Andreas Drakos, chief pilot Ianko Stoimenov, operations director George Kikides and the defunct airline as a legal entity.

The manslaughter charge carried a maximum life sentence. The men also had faced a lesser charge of causing death by recklessness.

The ruling angered victims’ relatives inside the court. Some shouted “killers,” and “is this justice?” as bailiffs spirited the defendants outside after the dissenting judge finished reading his opinion.

Outside relatives clutched photographs of victims and wept, while others heaped abuse on lawyers exiting the building whom they thought had represented the defendants.