On this day 18 years ago, on August 14, 2005, a Boeing of the Cypriot airline Helios Airways crashed into a hill at Grammatiko in Athens, about 30 kilometers northwest of “Eleftherios Venizelos” airport, killing its 115 passengers and all 6 crew members of the crew.

Flight 522 departed that morning at 09:07 Greek time from Larnaca, Cyprus bound for Prague, Czech Republic, with a stopover at Eleftherios Venizelos Airport in Athens.

After intercepted by F16 fightersthe unmanned plane crashed at 12:03 Greek time, in a plane crash that froze the country.

118 bodies were recovered from the crash site, most of them charred by the fire that broke out after the crash, while 3 bodies were completely burned.
The identification of the bodies was made mainly from dental records and through DNA comparison them with samples from first degree relatives.

Autopsies revealed that the occupants had cardiac function at the time of the crash, with the forensic report however estimating that they were in a deep and irreversible coma due to hypoxia. The cause of death was multiple injuries due to the crash, as well as extensive burns for some bodies.

The history of the fatal flight

At 09:37 the aircraft entered the Athens FIR flying steadily at EP340. At 10:12, Athens KEP called Flight 522 four times with no response.[11] In the time period from 10:13 to 10:49 the Athens KEP called Flight 522 eleven times on the frequency in use and three times on the emergency frequency, among other attempts, while the Flight was also called by another aircraft, with no response.

At 10:16 the head of the Athens KEP notified the Athens Approach, the airport Control Tower and the Air Force about the loss of communication with the aircraft, while at 10:53 he declared an alert phase. From 10:37 the aircraft had entered a holding pattern at a height of 34,000 feet around El. Venizelos.[12]

Intercepted by F-16 fighters

At 11:23 Flight 522 was intercepted by two Hellenic Air Force F-16 fighter jets taking off from Nea Aghialos. The F-16 pilots attempted to visually communicate with the cockpit crew, maneuvered around the aircraft and did not observe smoke, fire or damage to the fuselage.

Fighter operators also stated that the captain’s seat was empty, possibly because he had gotten up earlier to look at the electrical circuit fuses, and the co-pilot had slumped over the controls, without an oxygen mask.

One operator further stated that he did not observe any movement in the passenger compartment and that he only saw three seated and motionless passengers wearing oxygen masks, as well as several hanging oxygen masks. At 11:34 the KEP of Athens declared a state of emergency.

Cockpit entry, engine shutdown, descent and crash

At 11:49 the F-16 pilot observed a person, wearing a cabin crew uniform and it was unclear if he was wearing a mask, enter the cockpit. Subsequent investigation indicated that this person was likely flight attendant Andreas Prodromou who held a professional pilot’s license from the United Kingdom. The person sat in the driver’s seat, put on the headset and reached for the instrument panel. At the same minute the left engine shut down due to fuel exhaustion and the aircraft banked to the left descending and heading northwest.

At 11:54 the person in the cockpit of Flight 522 issued three distress calls (MAYDAY) and then two more in a very faint voice. These broadcasts, however, were not made since the microphone was not activated and were simply recorded on the cockpit voice recorder (CVR). At 7,000 feet, the person in the cockpit nodded to the F-16 operator who signaled for him to follow, to which the person nodded with a thumbs down.

At 11:59, Flight 522’s course changed to southwest, continuing its descent, and at the same minute, the right engine shut down. At 12:03:32 the aircraft finally crashed into a hilly area near Grammatico Attica.

Finding

In October 2006, fourteen months after the crash of the plane, the conclusion of the Hellenic Commission for the Investigation of Accidents and Flight Safety under Akrivos Tsolakis on the causes of the crash was made public.

The active causes of the fall

Co-responsibility to engineers who checked the aircraft for the last flight and the pilots of the plane of flight HCY522, to correct the settings – mainly the manual setting on the compression regulator – which derailed the subsequent events. It is noted that for the same issue, Boeing has already accepted that in the binding manuals of the engineers and of the specific type of aircraft there was no clear indication to place the switch in “manual”. Also in the Conclusion, what was in the instructions of the corresponding manual of the operators in the particular airplane is examined.

Liability to operators, because they did not take timely corrective action based on the warnings they received, but bearing in mind what became known about the “dual” audible warnings and indications, which Boeing also changed after the plane tragedy. The result was that the operators were overcome by the symptoms of hypoxemia in a short time and were not in control.

The crew action system and communication between operators in the cockpit and flight attendants in the passenger cabin (CRM), which did not provide any training for actions, in the event of a serious incident such as the falling of the oxygen masks, despite the fact that for some time afterwards the aircraft did not proceed to the intended direct descent and continued on the same course height.

The final cause of the fall, as a result of the previous ones, was the stoppage of the engines due to lack of fuel.

Latent causes

The latent causes, i.e. those causes that are identified and whose latent function contributed to the activation of the active causes are:

The Department of Civil Aviation whose perennial and ongoing inadequacies and shortcomings did not ensure the necessary level of oversight.
Helios airline and the deficiencies in training, management and quality control that were also maintained due to the inadequacy of the Civil Aviation Department.
Boeing which despite the relevant events and indications, did not take sufficient and satisfactory corrective measures to prevent similar consecutive events that led to the crash of the Boeing 737-300 Helios.
The European and international organizations JAA, ICAO and EASA, which while from 1999 until August 2005, in audits found many, serious and recurring problems, in the Department of Civil Aviation and the aviation industry of Cyprus, did not quickly receive the due effective measures, consistently showing tolerance for the continuation of the situation

Trial

The trial of five company executives on charges of manslaughter and causing death by reckless, reckless or dangerous act began in Nicosia on September 17, 2009.

The Court of First Instance of Athens found Dimitris Pantazis, Giorgos Kikkidis, Ianko Stoimenov and Alan Irwin, all executives of the “Helios” company, guilty without mitigating circumstances for the plane crash. The Misdemeanor Court imposed a sentence of one year for each loss of life, plus a base sentence of three years, relating to their guilt of manslaughter. The total sentence of the company’s executives is 124 years.

The Misdemeanor Court retired to decide whether the sentence will be redeemable, as requested by the defendants’ advocates, and at the same time whether the sentence will have a suspensive character until the appeal is heard. The proposal for imprisonment is ten years.

In February 2013, the Tripartite Criminal Appeals Court imposed ten-year prison terms, redeemable for 80,000 euros each, on three of the four defendants.

With information from Wikipedia