Helios Airways Flight 522
Encyclopedia
Helios Airways Flight 522 (HCY 522 or ZU522) was a Helios Airways
Boeing 737-300
flight that crashed into a mountain on 14 August 2005 at 12:04 EEST
, north of Marathon
and Varnavas, Greece
. Rescue teams located wreckage near the community of Grammatiko
40 km (24.9 mi) from Athens
. All 121 on board were killed.
With 121 dead, this was 2005's deadliest aircraft crash to that date (it was exceeded two days later by the West Caribbean Airways Flight 708
crash, which killed 160) and was the second accident of the year that caused more than 100 fatalities, the first being Kam Air Flight 904
with 104 deaths. It is the 69th crash of a Boeing 737 (the most numerous passenger jet aircraft in the world) since it was brought into service in 1968.
and an Airbus A319-111
delivered on 14 May 2005. The aircraft had arrived in Larnaca from London Heathrow at 01:25 that morning.
The flight was scheduled to leave Larnaca
, Cyprus
at 09:00 local time, to Prague
via Athens
. The scheduled arrival time in Athens was 10:45. Hans-Jürgen Merten, a 59-year-old German contract pilot hired by Helios for the holiday flights, served as the captain. Pampos Charalambous, 51, a Cypriot who flew for Helios, served as the first officer. 32-year old Louisa Vouteri, a Greek national living in Cyprus who served as a chief purser, replaced a sick colleague.
When the aircraft arrived from London Heathrow earlier that morning, the previous flight crew had reported a frozen door seal and abnormal noises coming from the right aft service door, and requested a full inspection of the door.
The inspection was carried out by a ground engineer who then performed a pressurization leak check. In order to carry out this check, the pressurisation system was set to "manual", and was not set back to "auto" on completion of the test.
After the aircraft was returned into service, the flight crew overlooked the pressurisation system on three separate occasions: during the pre-flight procedure, the after-start check, and the after take-off check. During none of these checks did the flight crew notice the incorrect setting of the pressurisation system and did not set it back to "auto".
The aircraft took-off at 9:07 with the pressurisation system still set to "manual", and the aft outflow valve partially open.
As the aircraft climbed, the pressure inside the cabin gradually decreased. As it passed through an altitude of 12,040 ft, the cabin altitude warning horn sounded. The cabin altitude warning should have prompted the crew to stop the climb, but it was misidentified by the crew as a take-off configuration warning, which signals that the aircraft is not ready for take-off, and can only sound on the ground.
In the next few minutes a number of warning lights on the overhead panel in the cockpit illuminated. One or both of the equipment cooling warning lights came on to indicate low airflow through the cooling fans (a result of the decreased air density), accompanied by the master caution light. And the passenger oxygen light illuminated when, at an altitude of approximately 18,000 ft, the oxygen masks in the passenger cabin automatically deployed.
Shortly after the cabin altitude warning sounded, the captain radioed the Helios operations centre and reported "the take-off configuration warning on" and "cooling equipment normal and alternate off line". He then spoke to the ground engineer and repeatedly stated that the "cooling ventilation fan lights were off. The engineer (the one who had conducted the pressurization leak check) asked "Can you confirm that the pressurization panel is set to AUTO?" The captain, however, disregarded the question and instead asked in reply, "Where are my equipment cooling circuit breakers?". This was the last communication received from the aircraft.
The aircraft continued to climb until it leveled off at FL340 (approx. 34,000 ft). Between 09:30 and 09:40, Nicosia ATC repeatedly attempted to contact the aircraft, without success. At 09:37 the aircraft passed from Cyprus FIR
into Athens FIR, without making contact with Athens ATC. Nineteen attempts to contact the aircraft between 10:12 and 10:50 also met with no response, and at 10:40 the aircraft entered the holding pattern for Athens Airport, at the KEA VOR
, still at FL340. It would remain in the holding pattern, under control of the auto-pilot, for the next seventy minutes.
Two F-16 fighter aircraft from the Hellenic Air Force
111th Combat Wing were scrambled from Nea Anchialos
Air Base to establish visual contact. They intercepted the passenger jet at 11:24 and observed that the first officer was slumped motionless at the controls and the captain's seat was vacant. They also reported that oxygen masks were seen dangling in the passenger cabin.
At 11:49, flight attendant Andreas Prodromou entered the cockpit and sat down in the vacant captain's seat. Prodromou held a UK Commercial Pilot License, but was not qualified to fly the Boeing 737. Crash investigators concluded that Prodromou's experience was insufficient for him to gain control of the aircraft under the circumstances.
In any case, he did not have time to save the stricken aircraft. Almost as soon as he entered the cockpit, the left engine flamed out due to fuel exhaustion, the plane left the holding pattern and started to descend. Ten minutes after the loss of power from the left engine, the right engine also flamed out, and just before 12:04 the aircraft crashed into hills near Grammatiko.
The aircraft was carrying 115 passengers and a crew of 6. The passengers included 67 due to disembark at Athens, with the remainder continuing to Prague. The bodies of 118 individuals were recovered. The passenger list included 93 adults and 22 people under the age of 18. The passengers comprised 103 Cypriot nationals and 12 Greek nationals.
The Hellenic Air Accident Investigation and Aviation Safety Board (AAIASB) determined that the direct causal chain of events that led to the accident was
were ruled out by Greece's foreign ministry. Initial claims that the aircraft was shot down by the fighter jets have been refuted by eyewitnesses and the government.
The flight data recorder
and cockpit voice recorder
were sent to Paris
for analysis. Authorities served a search warrant
on Helios Airways' headquarters in Larnaca, Cyprus, and seized "documents or any other evidence which might be useful in the investigation of the possibility of criminal offences."
Most of the bodies recovered were burned beyond visual identification by the fierce fires that raged for hours in the dry brush and grass covering the crash site. However, it was determined that a body found in the cockpit area was that of a male flight attendant
and DNA testing revealed that the blood on the aircraft controls was that of flight attendant Andreas Prodromou, a pilot-in-training with approximately 260–270 hours of training completed. Autopsies on the crash victims showed that all were alive at the time of impact, but it could not be determined whether they were conscious as well. Prodromou was not originally scheduled to be on the flight; he joined the crew so he could spend time with his girlfriend, a fellow Helios flight attendant.
The emergency oxygen supply in the passenger cabin of this model of Boeing 737 is provided by chemical generators
that provide enough oxygen, through breathing masks, to sustain consciousness
for about 12 minutes, normally sufficient for an emergency descent to 10,000 feet (3,000 m), where atmospheric pressure is sufficient to sustain life without supplemental oxygen. Cabin crew have access to portable oxygen sets with considerably longer duration. Emergency oxygen for the flight crew comes from a dedicated tank.
, the accident aircraft experienced a rapid loss of cabin pressure, and the crew made a successful emergency descent. The cabin crew reported to the captain that there had been a bang from the aft service door, and that there was a hand-sized hole in the door's seal. The Air Accident and Incident Investigation Board (AAIIB) of Cyprus could not conclusively determine the causes of the incident, but indicated two possibilities: an electrical malfunction causing the opening of the outflow valve, or the inadvertent opening of the aft service door.
The mother of the first officer killed in the crash of Flight 522 claimed that her son had repeatedly complained to Helios about the aircraft getting cold. Passengers also reported problems with air conditioning on Helios flights. During the two months before the crash, the aircraft's Environmental Control System
required repair five times.
aired a documentary detailing a private investigation, made in cooperation with Advanced Aviation Technology Ltd., arguing that a design failure of the Boeing 737 may have contributed to the accident.
All wiring for the pressurization system is in one wiring loom to the outflow valve in the aft lower fuselage of the Boeing 737. During a flight in May 2003, British Airways Boeing 737-436 G-DOCE suffered a failure in this loom which caused opening of the outflow valve, which in turn caused the cabin to depressurize. The same wiring failure probably caused erroneous indications to the crew that the standby pressurization system had failed and that the outflow valve was fully closed and unresponsive to pilot input. After seeing indication of the standby pressurization failure, the crew switched the pressurization control to manual mode and made an emergency descent.
Discovery Channel reported its findings on the G-DOCE incident to the Hellenic Republic's Air Accident Investigation
& Aviation Safety Board.
The Board reported no evidence of wiring failure in Flight 522, and did not mention the G-DOCE incident. Because all available flight data showed the pressurization control in manual mode and the outflow valve open at a constant angle, and because there was no evidence the flight crew ever changed the pressurization mode, the Board concluded that the pressurization system had been set to manual for the entire flight, which caused the pressurization failure.
indicating that one of the flight crew had become blue in the face, or roughly translated as "The pilot is dead. Farewell, my cousin, here we're frozen." Police later arrested Nektarios-Sotirios Voutas, who admitted that he had made up the story and given several interviews in order to get attention. Voutas was tried by a court of first instance on 17 August 2005 and received a suspended 6-month imprisonment sentence under a 42-month probation term.
Another hoax involved photographs allegedly showing the aircraft being chased by Greek fighter jets. The photos were actually of a Helios 737-800 (rather than the crashed 737-300) with the registration altered and the fighter jets added.
against Boeing
on 24 July 2007. Their lawyer
, Constantinos Droungas, said "Boeing put the same alarm in place for two different types of dysfunction. One was a minor fault, but the other - the loss of oxygen in the cockpit - is extremely important". He also said that similar problems had been encountered before on Boeings in Ireland and Norway. The families are claiming 76 million euro
s in compensation from Boeing.
In early 2008, an Athens
prosecutor
charged six people with manslaughter
. Reports at the time said the suspects were two Britons, one Bulgarian national and three Cypriots.
On 23 December 2008, Helios Airways and four of its officials were charged in Cyprus with 119 counts of manslaughter
and of causing death by recklessness/negligence. The four officials were former chief pilot Ianko Stoimenov, chairman of the board Andreas Drakos, chief executive officer Demetris Pantazis, and operations manager Giorgos Kikidis. The trial began in November 2009, the state prosecutors finished presenting their case in June 2011.
Relatives of the dead filed a class action suit against the Cypriot Government
– specifically the Department of Civil Aviation – for negligence that led to the air disaster. They claim that the DCA was turning a blind eye to airlines’ loose enforcement of regulations, and that in general the department cut corners when it came to flight safety.
television
series Mayday
, which examines aerial incidents, their causes and results, created a documentary episode, titled Ghost Plane, about the disaster. Discovery Channel
UK
also produced a 45-minute documentary about the accident, titled Aircrash Unsolved: The Mystery of Flight 522.
Helios Airways
Helios Airways
Helios Airways was a low-cost Cypriot airline operating scheduled and charter flights between Cyprus and many European destinations. It has its corporate headquarters on the grounds of Larnaca International Airport in Larnaca. Its main base was Larnaca International Airport...
Boeing 737-300
Boeing 737 Classic
The Boeing 737 Classic is the name given to the -300/-400/-500 series of the Boeing 737 following the introduction of the -600/-700/-800/-900 series. They are short- to medium- range, narrow-body jet airliners produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The Classic series was introduced as the 'new...
flight that crashed into a mountain on 14 August 2005 at 12:04 EEST
Eastern European Summer Time
Eastern European Summer Time is one of the names of UTC+3 time zone, 3 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. It is used as a summer daylight saving time in some European, North African, and Middle Eastern countries...
, north of Marathon
Marathon, Greece
Marathon is a town in Greece, the site of the battle of Marathon in 490 BC, in which the heavily outnumbered Athenian army defeated the Persians. The tumulus or burial mound for the 192 Athenian dead that was erected near the battlefield remains a feature of the coastal plain...
and Varnavas, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
. Rescue teams located wreckage near the community of Grammatiko
Grammatiko
Grammatiko is a Greek village in east Attica. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Marathon, of which it is a municipal unit.It lies approximately northeast of Athens, and north of Marathon and Nea Makri...
40 km (24.9 mi) from Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
. All 121 on board were killed.
With 121 dead, this was 2005's deadliest aircraft crash to that date (it was exceeded two days later by the West Caribbean Airways Flight 708
West Caribbean Airways Flight 708
West Caribbean Airways Flight 708 was a West Caribbean Airways charter flight which crashed in a mountainous region in northwest Venezuela on the morning of Tuesday, 16 August 2005, killing all 152 passengers and eight crew....
crash, which killed 160) and was the second accident of the year that caused more than 100 fatalities, the first being Kam Air Flight 904
Kam Air Flight 904
Kam Air Flight 904 was involved in a deadly aviation disaster over the Pamir mountains of Afghanistan in February 2005. The incident took place shortly after 4:00 p.m.local time on February 3, when a private Kam Air Boeing 737-200 jet aircraft went missing in Afghanistan during a domestic flight...
with 104 deaths. It is the 69th crash of a Boeing 737 (the most numerous passenger jet aircraft in the world) since it was brought into service in 1968.
Background
The aircraft involved in this incident was first flown on 29 December 1997 and had been operated by DBA until it was leased by Helios Airways on 16 April 2004 and nicknamed Olympia, with registration 5B-DBY. Aside from the downed aircraft, the Helios fleet consisted of two leased Boeing 737-800sBoeing 737 Next Generation
The Boeing 737 Next Generation, commonly abbreviated as Boeing 737NG, is the name given to the -600/-700/-800/-900 series of the Boeing 737 after the introduction of the -300/-400/-500 Classic series. They are short- to medium-range, narrow-body jet airliners...
and an Airbus A319-111
Airbus A320 family
The Airbus A320 family is a family of short- to medium-range, narrow-body, commercial passenger jet airliners manufactured by Airbus Industrie.Airbus was originally a consortium of European aerospace companies, and is now fully owned by EADS. Airbus's name has been Airbus SAS since 2001...
delivered on 14 May 2005. The aircraft had arrived in Larnaca from London Heathrow at 01:25 that morning.
The flight was scheduled to leave Larnaca
Larnaca
Larnaca, is the third largest city on the southern coast of Cyprus after Nicosia and Limassol. It has a population of 72,000 and is the island's second largest commercial port and an important tourist resort...
, Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
at 09:00 local time, to Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
via Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
. The scheduled arrival time in Athens was 10:45. Hans-Jürgen Merten, a 59-year-old German contract pilot hired by Helios for the holiday flights, served as the captain. Pampos Charalambous, 51, a Cypriot who flew for Helios, served as the first officer. 32-year old Louisa Vouteri, a Greek national living in Cyprus who served as a chief purser, replaced a sick colleague.
Flight and crash
| Date: 14 August 2005 All times EEST Eastern European Summer Time Eastern European Summer Time is one of the names of UTC+3 time zone, 3 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. It is used as a summer daylight saving time in some European, North African, and Middle Eastern countries... (UTC + 3h Hour The hour is a unit of measurement of time. In modern usage, an hour comprises 60 minutes, or 3,600 seconds... ), PM in bold |
|
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| 0900 | Scheduled departure |
| 0907 | Departs Larnaca International Airport Larnaca International Airport Larnaca International Airport is an international airport located southwest of Larnaca, Cyprus. Larnaca International Airport is Cyprus' main international gateway and the larger of the country's two commercial airports, the other being Paphos International Airport on the island's southwestern... |
| 0912 | Cabin Altitude Warning sounds at 12,040 feet (3,670 m) |
| 0914 | Pilots report air conditioning Air conditioning An air conditioner is a home appliance, system, or mechanism designed to dehumidify and extract heat from an area. The cooling is done using a simple refrigeration cycle... problem |
| 0920 | Last contact with crew; Altitude is 28,900 feet (8,809 m) |
| 0923 | Now at 34,000 feet (10,400 m); Probably on autopilot Autopilot An autopilot is a mechanical, electrical, or hydraulic system used to guide a vehicle without assistance from a human being. An autopilot can refer specifically to aircraft, self-steering gear for boats, or auto guidance of space craft and missiles... |
| 0937 | Enters Athens Athens Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state... Flight Information Region Flight Information Region In aviation a flight information region is a region of airspace with specific dimensions, in which a flight information service and an alerting service are provided. It is the largest regular division of airspace in use in the world today.... |
| 1012–1050 | No response to radio calls from Athens ATC Air traffic control Air traffic control is a service provided by ground-based controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and in the air. The primary purpose of ATC systems worldwide is to separate aircraft to prevent collisions, to organize and expedite the flow of traffic, and to provide information and other... |
| 1020 | Athens ATC Air traffic control Air traffic control is a service provided by ground-based controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and in the air. The primary purpose of ATC systems worldwide is to separate aircraft to prevent collisions, to organize and expedite the flow of traffic, and to provide information and other... calls Larnaca ATC Air traffic control Air traffic control is a service provided by ground-based controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and in the air. The primary purpose of ATC systems worldwide is to separate aircraft to prevent collisions, to organize and expedite the flow of traffic, and to provide information and other... ; Gets report of air conditioning problem |
| 1024 | Hellenic Air Force Hellenic Air Force The Hellenic Air Force, abbreviated to HAF is the air force of Greece. The mission of the Hellenic Air Force is to guard and protect Greek airspace, provide air assistance and support to the Hellenic Army and the Hellenic Navy, as well as the provision of humanitarian aid in Greece and around the... (HAF) alerted to possible renegade aircraft |
| 1045 | Scheduled arrival in Athens Athens Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state... |
| 1047 | HAF Hellenic Air Force The Hellenic Air Force, abbreviated to HAF is the air force of Greece. The mission of the Hellenic Air Force is to guard and protect Greek airspace, provide air assistance and support to the Hellenic Army and the Hellenic Navy, as well as the provision of humanitarian aid in Greece and around the... reassured that the problem seemed to have been solved |
| 1055 | HAF Hellenic Air Force The Hellenic Air Force, abbreviated to HAF is the air force of Greece. The mission of the Hellenic Air Force is to guard and protect Greek airspace, provide air assistance and support to the Hellenic Army and the Hellenic Navy, as well as the provision of humanitarian aid in Greece and around the... ordered to intercept Interceptor aircraft An interceptor aircraft is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically to prevent missions of enemy aircraft, particularly bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. Interceptors generally rely on high speed and powerful armament in order to complete their mission as quickly as possible and set up... by Chief of General Staff Hellenic National Defense General Staff The Hellenic National Defence General Staff is the senior staff of the Hellenic Armed Forces. It was established in 1950, when the separate armed services ministries were consolidated into the Ministry of National Defence... , Admiral Admiral Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"... Panagiotis Chinofotis Panagiotis Chinofotis Admiral Panagiotis Chinofotis is a Member of Parliament with the New Democracy party, a former Vice-Minister of the Interior and a former Chief of the Hellenic National Defense General Staff.Born in Athens, Chinofotis graduated from the Hellenic Naval Academy and was commissioned an... |
| 1105 | Two F-16 fighters depart Nea Anchialos Nea Anchialos Nea Anchialos is a town and a former municipality in Magnesia, Thessaly, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Volos, of which it is a municipal unit. It is situated southwest of Volos and north of Almyros. It is placed on the national highway... |
| 1124 | Located by F-16s over Aegean Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus... island of Kea |
| 1132 | Fighters see co-pilot slumped over, cabin oxygen deployed, no signs of terrorism |
| 1149 | Fighters see an individual in the cockpit, apparently trying to regain control of aircraft |
| 1150 | Left (#1) engine stops operating, presumably due to fuel starvation Fuel Starvation Fuel starvation and fuel exhaustion are problems that can affect internal combustion engines fuelled by either diesel, kerosene, petroleum or any other combustible liquid or gas. If no fuel is available for an engine to burn, it cannot function... |
| 1154 | CVR records two MAYDAY Mayday (distress signal) Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice procedure radio communications. It derives from the French venez m'aider, meaning "come help me".... messages |
| 1200 | Right (#2) engine stops operating |
| 1204 | Aircraft crashes in mountains near Grammatikos, Greece Greece Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe.... |
When the aircraft arrived from London Heathrow earlier that morning, the previous flight crew had reported a frozen door seal and abnormal noises coming from the right aft service door, and requested a full inspection of the door.
The inspection was carried out by a ground engineer who then performed a pressurization leak check. In order to carry out this check, the pressurisation system was set to "manual", and was not set back to "auto" on completion of the test.
After the aircraft was returned into service, the flight crew overlooked the pressurisation system on three separate occasions: during the pre-flight procedure, the after-start check, and the after take-off check. During none of these checks did the flight crew notice the incorrect setting of the pressurisation system and did not set it back to "auto".
The aircraft took-off at 9:07 with the pressurisation system still set to "manual", and the aft outflow valve partially open.
As the aircraft climbed, the pressure inside the cabin gradually decreased. As it passed through an altitude of 12,040 ft, the cabin altitude warning horn sounded. The cabin altitude warning should have prompted the crew to stop the climb, but it was misidentified by the crew as a take-off configuration warning, which signals that the aircraft is not ready for take-off, and can only sound on the ground.
In the next few minutes a number of warning lights on the overhead panel in the cockpit illuminated. One or both of the equipment cooling warning lights came on to indicate low airflow through the cooling fans (a result of the decreased air density), accompanied by the master caution light. And the passenger oxygen light illuminated when, at an altitude of approximately 18,000 ft, the oxygen masks in the passenger cabin automatically deployed.
Shortly after the cabin altitude warning sounded, the captain radioed the Helios operations centre and reported "the take-off configuration warning on" and "cooling equipment normal and alternate off line". He then spoke to the ground engineer and repeatedly stated that the "cooling ventilation fan lights were off. The engineer (the one who had conducted the pressurization leak check) asked "Can you confirm that the pressurization panel is set to AUTO?" The captain, however, disregarded the question and instead asked in reply, "Where are my equipment cooling circuit breakers?". This was the last communication received from the aircraft.
The aircraft continued to climb until it leveled off at FL340 (approx. 34,000 ft). Between 09:30 and 09:40, Nicosia ATC repeatedly attempted to contact the aircraft, without success. At 09:37 the aircraft passed from Cyprus FIR
Flight Information Region
In aviation a flight information region is a region of airspace with specific dimensions, in which a flight information service and an alerting service are provided. It is the largest regular division of airspace in use in the world today....
into Athens FIR, without making contact with Athens ATC. Nineteen attempts to contact the aircraft between 10:12 and 10:50 also met with no response, and at 10:40 the aircraft entered the holding pattern for Athens Airport, at the KEA VOR
VHF omnidirectional range
VOR, short for VHF omnidirectional radio range, is a type of radio navigation system for aircraft. A VOR ground station broadcasts a VHF radio composite signal including the station's identifier, voice , and navigation signal. The identifier is typically a two- or three-letter string in Morse code...
, still at FL340. It would remain in the holding pattern, under control of the auto-pilot, for the next seventy minutes.
Two F-16 fighter aircraft from the Hellenic Air Force
Hellenic Air Force
The Hellenic Air Force, abbreviated to HAF is the air force of Greece. The mission of the Hellenic Air Force is to guard and protect Greek airspace, provide air assistance and support to the Hellenic Army and the Hellenic Navy, as well as the provision of humanitarian aid in Greece and around the...
111th Combat Wing were scrambled from Nea Anchialos
Nea Anchialos
Nea Anchialos is a town and a former municipality in Magnesia, Thessaly, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Volos, of which it is a municipal unit. It is situated southwest of Volos and north of Almyros. It is placed on the national highway...
Air Base to establish visual contact. They intercepted the passenger jet at 11:24 and observed that the first officer was slumped motionless at the controls and the captain's seat was vacant. They also reported that oxygen masks were seen dangling in the passenger cabin.
At 11:49, flight attendant Andreas Prodromou entered the cockpit and sat down in the vacant captain's seat. Prodromou held a UK Commercial Pilot License, but was not qualified to fly the Boeing 737. Crash investigators concluded that Prodromou's experience was insufficient for him to gain control of the aircraft under the circumstances.
In any case, he did not have time to save the stricken aircraft. Almost as soon as he entered the cockpit, the left engine flamed out due to fuel exhaustion, the plane left the holding pattern and started to descend. Ten minutes after the loss of power from the left engine, the right engine also flamed out, and just before 12:04 the aircraft crashed into hills near Grammatiko.
The aircraft was carrying 115 passengers and a crew of 6. The passengers included 67 due to disembark at Athens, with the remainder continuing to Prague. The bodies of 118 individuals were recovered. The passenger list included 93 adults and 22 people under the age of 18. The passengers comprised 103 Cypriot nationals and 12 Greek nationals.
The Hellenic Air Accident Investigation and Aviation Safety Board (AAIASB) determined that the direct causal chain of events that led to the accident was
- non-recognition by the pilots that the pressurisation system was set to "manual";
- non-identification by the crew of the true nature of the problem;
- incapacitation of the crew due to hypoxia, eventual fuel starvation and impact with the ground.
Investigation
Suspicions that the aircraft had been hijackedAircraft hijacking
Aircraft hijacking is the unlawful seizure of an aircraft by an individual or a group. In most cases, the pilot is forced to fly according to the orders of the hijackers. Occasionally, however, the hijackers have flown the aircraft themselves, such as the September 11 attacks of 2001...
were ruled out by Greece's foreign ministry. Initial claims that the aircraft was shot down by the fighter jets have been refuted by eyewitnesses and the government.
The flight data recorder
Flight data recorder
A flight data recorder is an electronic device employed to record any instructions sent to any electronic systems on an aircraft. It is a device used to record specific aircraft performance parameters...
and cockpit voice recorder
Cockpit voice recorder
A cockpit voice recorder , often referred to as a "black box", is a flight recorder used to record the audio environment in the flight deck of an aircraft for the purpose of investigation of accidents and incidents...
were sent to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
for analysis. Authorities served a search warrant
Search warrant
A search warrant is a court order issued by a Magistrate, judge or Supreme Court Official that authorizes law enforcement officers to conduct a search of a person or location for evidence of a crime and to confiscate evidence if it is found....
on Helios Airways' headquarters in Larnaca, Cyprus, and seized "documents or any other evidence which might be useful in the investigation of the possibility of criminal offences."
Most of the bodies recovered were burned beyond visual identification by the fierce fires that raged for hours in the dry brush and grass covering the crash site. However, it was determined that a body found in the cockpit area was that of a male flight attendant
Flight attendant
Flight attendants or cabin crew are members of an aircrew employed by airlines primarily to ensure the safety and comfort of passengers aboard commercial flights, on select business jet aircraft, and on some military aircraft.-History:The role of a flight attendant derives from that of similar...
and DNA testing revealed that the blood on the aircraft controls was that of flight attendant Andreas Prodromou, a pilot-in-training with approximately 260–270 hours of training completed. Autopsies on the crash victims showed that all were alive at the time of impact, but it could not be determined whether they were conscious as well. Prodromou was not originally scheduled to be on the flight; he joined the crew so he could spend time with his girlfriend, a fellow Helios flight attendant.
The emergency oxygen supply in the passenger cabin of this model of Boeing 737 is provided by chemical generators
Chemical oxygen generator
A chemical oxygen generator is a device releasing oxygen created by a chemical reaction. The oxygen source is usually an inorganic superoxide, chlorate, or perchlorate. A promising group of oxygen sources are ozonides. The generators are usually ignited mechanically, by a firing pin, and the...
that provide enough oxygen, through breathing masks, to sustain consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
for about 12 minutes, normally sufficient for an emergency descent to 10,000 feet (3,000 m), where atmospheric pressure is sufficient to sustain life without supplemental oxygen. Cabin crew have access to portable oxygen sets with considerably longer duration. Emergency oxygen for the flight crew comes from a dedicated tank.
Previous pressurization problems
On 16 December 2004, during an earlier flight from WarsawWarsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, the accident aircraft experienced a rapid loss of cabin pressure, and the crew made a successful emergency descent. The cabin crew reported to the captain that there had been a bang from the aft service door, and that there was a hand-sized hole in the door's seal. The Air Accident and Incident Investigation Board (AAIIB) of Cyprus could not conclusively determine the causes of the incident, but indicated two possibilities: an electrical malfunction causing the opening of the outflow valve, or the inadvertent opening of the aft service door.
The mother of the first officer killed in the crash of Flight 522 claimed that her son had repeatedly complained to Helios about the aircraft getting cold. Passengers also reported problems with air conditioning on Helios flights. During the two months before the crash, the aircraft's Environmental Control System
Environmental Control System
The environmental control system of an aircraft provides air supply, thermal control and cabin pressurization for the crew and passengers...
required repair five times.
Private investigation
One year after the accident, the Discovery ChannelDiscovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
aired a documentary detailing a private investigation, made in cooperation with Advanced Aviation Technology Ltd., arguing that a design failure of the Boeing 737 may have contributed to the accident.
All wiring for the pressurization system is in one wiring loom to the outflow valve in the aft lower fuselage of the Boeing 737. During a flight in May 2003, British Airways Boeing 737-436 G-DOCE suffered a failure in this loom which caused opening of the outflow valve, which in turn caused the cabin to depressurize. The same wiring failure probably caused erroneous indications to the crew that the standby pressurization system had failed and that the outflow valve was fully closed and unresponsive to pilot input. After seeing indication of the standby pressurization failure, the crew switched the pressurization control to manual mode and made an emergency descent.
Discovery Channel reported its findings on the G-DOCE incident to the Hellenic Republic's Air Accident Investigation
& Aviation Safety Board.
The Board reported no evidence of wiring failure in Flight 522, and did not mention the G-DOCE incident. Because all available flight data showed the pressurization control in manual mode and the outflow valve open at a constant angle, and because there was no evidence the flight crew ever changed the pressurization mode, the Board concluded that the pressurization system had been set to manual for the entire flight, which caused the pressurization failure.
Hoaxes
News media widely reported that shortly before the crash a passenger sent a text messageShort message service
Short Message Service is a text messaging service component of phone, web, or mobile communication systems, using standardized communications protocols that allow the exchange of short text messages between fixed line or mobile phone devices...
indicating that one of the flight crew had become blue in the face, or roughly translated as "The pilot is dead. Farewell, my cousin, here we're frozen." Police later arrested Nektarios-Sotirios Voutas, who admitted that he had made up the story and given several interviews in order to get attention. Voutas was tried by a court of first instance on 17 August 2005 and received a suspended 6-month imprisonment sentence under a 42-month probation term.
Another hoax involved photographs allegedly showing the aircraft being chased by Greek fighter jets. The photos were actually of a Helios 737-800 (rather than the crashed 737-300) with the registration altered and the fighter jets added.
Subsequent developments
- The flight Larnaca-Athens-Prague has been renumbered ZU604/5.
- The service between Larnaca and Prague was discontinued on 26 August 2005.
- The company announced successful safety checks on their Boeing fleet 29 August 2005 and put them back into service.
- The company renamed itself from "Helios Airways (www.flyhelios.com)" to "αjet (www.ajet.com)".
- The Government of the Republic of Cyprus detained Ajet’s aircraft and froze the company’s bank accounts. Ajet no longer operates flights as of 11 June 2006.
- In February 2011, the Federal Aviation Authority in the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
released an airworthiness directiveAirworthiness DirectiveAn Airworthiness Directive is a notification to owners and operators of certified aircraft that a known safety deficiency with a particular model of aircraft, engine, avionics or other system exists and must be corrected....
requiring all Boeing 737 aircraft from -100 to -500 models to be fitted with two additional cockpit warning lights. These would indicate problems with take-off configuration or pressurisation. Aircraft on the United States civil register are required to have the additional lights by 14 March 2014.
Lawsuits and criminal proceedings
Families of the dead filed a lawsuitLawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
against Boeing
Boeing
The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...
on 24 July 2007. Their lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
, Constantinos Droungas, said "Boeing put the same alarm in place for two different types of dysfunction. One was a minor fault, but the other - the loss of oxygen in the cockpit - is extremely important". He also said that similar problems had been encountered before on Boeings in Ireland and Norway. The families are claiming 76 million euro
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
s in compensation from Boeing.
In early 2008, an Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
prosecutor
Prosecutor
The prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system, or the civil law inquisitorial system...
charged six people with manslaughter
Manslaughter
Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...
. Reports at the time said the suspects were two Britons, one Bulgarian national and three Cypriots.
On 23 December 2008, Helios Airways and four of its officials were charged in Cyprus with 119 counts of manslaughter
Manslaughter
Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...
and of causing death by recklessness/negligence. The four officials were former chief pilot Ianko Stoimenov, chairman of the board Andreas Drakos, chief executive officer Demetris Pantazis, and operations manager Giorgos Kikidis. The trial began in November 2009, the state prosecutors finished presenting their case in June 2011.
Relatives of the dead filed a class action suit against the Cypriot Government
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
– specifically the Department of Civil Aviation – for negligence that led to the air disaster. They claim that the DCA was turning a blind eye to airlines’ loose enforcement of regulations, and that in general the department cut corners when it came to flight safety.
Dramatization
The CanadianCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
series Mayday
Mayday (TV series)
Mayday, also known as Air Crash Investigation in the United Kingdom, Australia and Asia and Air Emergency and Air Disasters in the United States, is a Canadian documentary television programme produced by Cineflix investigating air crashes, near-crashes and other disasters...
, which examines aerial incidents, their causes and results, created a documentary episode, titled Ghost Plane, about the disaster. Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
also produced a 45-minute documentary about the accident, titled Aircrash Unsolved: The Mystery of Flight 522.
See also
Other accidents caused by decompression resulting in pilot incapacitation due to hypoxia:- 1999 South Dakota Learjet crash1999 South Dakota Learjet crashOn October 25, 1999, a chartered Learjet 35 was scheduled to fly from Orlando, Florida to Dallas, Texas. Early in the flight the aircraft, which was cruising at altitude on autopilot, gradually lost cabin pressure. As a result, all on board were incapacitated due to hypoxia— a lack of oxygen...
- Australia “Ghost Flight”2000 Australia Beechcraft King Air crashSierra Kilo Charlie was the call sign for chartered Beechcraft 200 Super King Air which, on 4 September 2000, crashed near Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia. The flight plan of the aircraft called for the pilot to fly between Perth, Western Australia, and the mining town of Leonora, Western...