Strictly Necessary Cookies : These are essential in order to enable you to use certain features of the website, such as submitting forms on the website.The types of cookies used on this Site can be classified into one of three categories: It is recommended that you leave on all cookies if you are not sure whether you need them or not, in case they are used to provide a service that you use. Unfortunately, in most cases, there are no industry standard options for disabling cookies without completely disabling the functionality and features they add to the site. We use cookies for a variety of reasons detailed below. We will also share how you can prevent these cookies from being stored however this may downgrade or ‘break’ certain elements of the Site’s functionality. This document describes what information they gather, how we use it, and why we sometimes need to store these cookies. The plane lost cabin pressure and hypoxia caused the incapacitation of the passengers and flight crew. When the plane was put back into service, flight crew overlooked the error during the pre-flight procedure, the after-start check, and the after take-off check. He said five of the flight safety recommendations included in his report have been adopted by aircraft manufacturers and are also taught to cabin crew.īefore the flight, Helios technicians did a pressure check but failed to reset the pressurisation system from manual back to auto after the test was completed. “Since then I have lost my sleep, I lay awake all night long,” Tsolakis said. Tsolakis recalls that what that saw was “a spectacle that no cinema film could reenact”. “I took off my hat, I told the others to do the same,” he said. He said he chanted a prayer he had learned as a child. He said upon arrival on site right after the crash, he and rest of the crew came across “a valley strewn with pieces of the aircraft and human parts.” “No one ever pays for anything,” she said.Īugust 14, she said, will always be a date that haunts the victims’ relatives, adding that on that date in 2005 some bid farewell to their loved ones, never to see them again.Ĭaptain Akrivos Tsolakis, the man tasked with investigating the air accident at the time, told CNA “he has lost his sleep since”. In August 2013, each one of them paid €75,000 and was set free.įor Michaelides, the monetary sentences given in Greece were “a mockery”. Under Greek law, however, the defendants were given the option of buying out their sentences. They appealed the verdict but lost the case before the Greek supreme court. Pantazis, Kikkides, Stoimenov and chief engineer Alan Irwin were charged with manslaughter and were eventually found guilty in April 2012 and sentenced to 10 years in jail. Shortly after the trial in Cyprus, a trial in Greece started since the plane crashed on Greek soil. The four were acquitted of all charges in December 2011, after the court concluded that there was no causal association between them and the causes of the accident. “This is not over for us, those at fault have not been punished,” she said.įour Helios officials – former chief pilot Ianko Stoimenov, chairman of the board Andreas Drakos, chief executive officer Demetris Pantazis, and operations manager Giorgos Kikidis – were brought up on 119 charges of manslaughter and death by negligence. Head of the committee of relatives of Helios’ victims, Niki Michaelidou, told CNA the sentences given to those found responsible for the tragedy were humiliating to the people who lost their lives. The victims’ relatives told the Cyprus News Agency that for them the issue is not over since those at fault walked scot-free. It was not possible for the relatives of the victims to travel from Cyprus this year due to the pandemic restrictions. Cyprus’ ambassador to Athens, Kyriacos Kenevezos was to attend the memorial.
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