source http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/08/14/greece.crash/index.html
ATHENS, Greece (CNN) -- A Cypriot plane with "no sign of life" in the
cockpit as it approached Athens has crashed into a mountain, killing all
121 people on board, Greek officials said.
F-16 pilots escorting the jet after air traffic controllers lost contact
with it said the pilot was not in the cockpit and the co-pilot was
slumped over the controls, according to reports.
The pilots of the Helios Airways Boeing 737 had reported an air conditioning
problem, and Greek TV said a passenger sent a text message to his cousin
saying it was freezing in the plane.
"The pilot has turned blue (in the face)," the passenger said in the SMS
message, Reuters quoted the television report as saying. "Cousin farewell
we're freezing."
The plane, Helios Flight 522 with 115 passengers and six crew en route
from Larnaca, Cyprus to Athens, crashed about 12 p.m. Sunday (0900 GMT,
5 a.m. ET), officials said.
The Greek government said there were no survivors.
The plane was supposed to continue to Prague, Czech Republic after landing
in Athens, according to the Czech Press Agency, citing officials at the
Prague airport.
The passengers included 59 adults and eight children who were disembarking
at Athens for a vacation, the government said, along with 46 adults and
two children who were headed to Prague.
Akrivos Tsolakis, head of the Greek airline safety committee, called the
crash the "worst accident we've ever had," The Associated Press reported.
Greek officials said they suspect malfunctions in the oxygen supply or
pressurization system could have caused the crash.
Greek police said there were no signs the plane had been hijacked, Reuters
reported.
A Cyprus government spokesman said all the passengers were Cypriots. Vicky
Xites, commercial manager for Helios Airways, told CNN the airline had set
up a command center at Larnaca Airport and that the prime minister was on
his way.
Greek ministers broke off their holidays to return to Athens for emergency
meetings.
The jet crashed near the coastal town of Grammatikos, about 40 km (25 miles)
north of Athens and near the historic town of Marathon.
The crash site was littered with bodies and debris, Athens journalist
Paul Anastasi told CNN. Video footage from the site showed the smoking
wreckage of the aircraft. Only the tail portion remained identifiable.
The crash sparked forest fires, which officials said were hindering
recovery efforts.
"There is wreckage everywhere," Grammatikos Mayor George Papageorgiou
told AP from the scene.
"The fuselage has been destroyed. It fell into a chasm and there are
pieces. All the residents are here trying to help."
One witness told Reuters: "I saw many bodies scattered around, all of
them wearing (oxygen) masks. The tail was cut off and the remaining parts
of the plane rolled down a hillside about 500 metres away from the tail."
The jet entered Greek air space about 10:30 a.m., but efforts by air
traffic controllers to contact the pilots were futile. After some time,
two Greek F-16s were scrambled, Greek Air Force spokesman Yiannis
Papageorgiou told CNN.
As the F-16s approached, their pilots saw "no sign of life" in the
cockpit, and the plane apparently was on autopilot, Papageorgiou said.
The F-16 pilots reported the pilot was not in the cockpit, and the
co-pilot was slumped over the controls, Anastasi said.
They also reported they could see through the plane's windows that
the oxygen masks had dropped down.
The F-16s escorted the plane until it struck the mountain. The Greek
Defense Ministry has denied reports that the F-16s shot down the plane.
"Although there are precedents for both pilots losing consciousness at
the controls of aircraft in the past, for it to happen on a large airliner
like a Boeing 737, with all the backup systems they have there, does seem
to be really quite extraordinary," said Kieran Daly, editor of Air Transport
Intelligence.
"It really is all very peculiar at the moment, I rather suspect we're
heading for a very complicated investigation," he said.
A lack of oxygen apparently caused the crash that killed golfer Payne
Stewart in the U.S. state of South Dakota in 1999.
Stewart's twin-engine jet went down in a pasture after flying halfway
across the country on autopilot, as Stewart and the four others aboard
apparently lay unconscious for lack of oxygen after the plane lost cabin
pressure. Everyone was killed.
In Greece, witness Dimitris Karezas, who owns a summer camp in the
area of Sunday's crash, told Reuters, "I saw the plane coming. I knew
it was serious or that it was some kind of VIP because I saw the two
fighter jets.
"Two, three minutes later I heard a big bang and ever since I've started
looking for it, but I have not found anything yet," he told reporters.
A spokeswoman for the Czech Airport Authority, Anna Kovarikova, told
Reuters the flight had been due to land in Prague at 1:10 p.m. (1110 GMT).
At the Prague airport, where friends and relatives were gathering to
meet the flight, screens showing departures and arrivals read simply
"delayed" next to the stricken flight.
Helios Airlines is a subsidiary of Libra Holidays Group, which specializes
in travel packages to Greece and Cyprus.
This weekend marks the Greek Orthodox holiday of the Assumption of the
Virgin, a peak travel time.
Journalist Anthee Carassavas and CNN's Tomas Etzler contributed
to this report.
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看來可能真的是氧氣供應出了問題....
可是駕駛艙沒有備用嗎?
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曾經有一個女孩肯為我而死! 你知道嗎?
當我對她說；當我女朋友好嗎? 她回答；我寧願去死!
你就知道我多麼有魅力了......這麼樣肯為我死的女孩上哪裡找......
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