On August 14, 2005, Helios Airways Flight 522 covered the route between Larnaca International Airport (Cyprus), and Ruzyně International Airport (Prague, Czech Republic), with a stopover in Athens (Greece). The aircraft, a Boeing 737, crashed on a mountain at 09:04 UTC on that day, near Grammatiko, 40 km north of Athens while on approach to Athens airport capital, killing all 115 passengers and 6 crew members on board.[1][2]
It is the deadliest aviation disaster in Greek history.
Flight crew
The flight captain was Hans-Jürgen Merten, a 59-year-old German pilot hired by Helios for the holiday season, who had been flying for 35 years and had a total of 16,900 flight hours, 5,500 of them on Boeing 737s.
The first officer was Pampos Charalambous, a 51-year-old Cypriot pilot who had flown exclusively on Helios for the last five years, accumulating 7,549 flight hours throughout his career, 3,991 of them on the Boeing 737.
Last contact with crew; Altitude is 28,900 feet (8,809 m)
09:23
Now at 34,000 feet (10,400 m); Probably on autopilot
09:37
Enters Athens flight information region; Nicosia ATC informs Athens ATC that radio contact has been lost.[3]: 17 Aircraft begins circling Athens on autopilot
Aircraft crashes in mountains near Grammatiko, Greece
Passengers
The bodies of 118 people were recovered.[4] The passenger list included 93 adults and 22 children. The passengers comprised 103 Cypriot nationals and 12 Greek nationals.[5]
Nationality
Passengers
Crew
Total
Cyprus
103
4
107
Germany
0
1
1
Greece
12
1
13
Total
115
6
121
Cause
The cause of the accident was due to the fact that after takeoff, as the aircraft gained altitude, a failure when configuring the pressurization regulator caused the loss of consciousness of both the pilots and the passengers due to hypoxia, turning the aircraft into at that time in a "ghost flight" that was only kept flying by the operation of the autopilot. Finally, already over Greek territory, it hit a hill due to lack of fuel.
Other accidents
The accident was the largest in the history of Greek aviation, along with one of the most serious in August 2005, a dark month for commercial aviation, which also featured, among others, the tragedies of West Caribbean Airways Flight 708 and TANS Perú Flight 204.
↑Ranter, Harro. "Greece air safety profile". aviation-safety.net. Aviation Safety Network. Archived from the original on 25 March 2022. Retrieved May 11, 2022.
