![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() One of the F-16 pilots reported that he could not see the captain in the cockpit and his co-pilot appeared to be slumped in his seat, a Defence Ministry official told reporters. Pilots of two F16 fighters sent up to escort the airliner before the crash "saw a situation that was not normal in the pilots' cabin." The cause remains as yet unknown, although there have been harrowing accounts of an apparent crisis in the cockpit in the plane's last minutes with Greek officials saying one of the pilots was slumped in his seat. Of those aboard, 59 adults and eight children were heading to Athens 48 were continuing on to Prague.Ī Cypriot official said that the first indications of the Greek authorities were that the crash was not the result of a terrorist attack.Ĭauses unknown Pieces of a Helios Airways jet litter a roadside near the coastal Greek town of Grammatikos Image: AP Helios said most of the passengers on the airliner were Greek Cypriots. The Helios Airways Boeing 737 was about to land at Athens airport for a stopover on its journey from Larnaca in Cyprus to the Czech capital Prague when it crashed at Varnava, a largely uninhabited area 40 kilometers (25 miles) northeast of Athens. That and the other black box, the flight data recorder, would be sent to Paris for analysis, under agreement between France and Greece, Tsolakis said. "We don't know if we will be able to get something from it," he said. The head of the investigation into the crash, Akrivos Tsolakis, confirmed the discovery of the plane's second "black box," containing recordings of the pilots' cockpit conversations, but said it was in a "very bad state." Second black box found Rescuers walk by the tail of a Cypriot Helios Airways jet near the coastal town of Grammatikos Image: AP Relatives of the victims were expected to arrive in Greece early Monday on a specially-chartered flight. Remains which were not identifiable would be DNA tested at the morgue in the port of Pireus, where all the bodies had been taken initially, Interior Minister Prokopiis Pavlopoulos said after a meeting during the night with Cypriot officials. The interior ministry said identifiable bodies would be taken to an establishment at Goudi, near Athens city centre, where relatives could begin identifying them. The search for bodies from Sunday's crash had gone on throughout the night under powerful arc lights. Rescuers were concentrating their efforts on locating the bodies of the two remaining victims in the burned out wreckage of the aircraft at the bottom of a ravine. ![]()
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