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Greek Plane Crash Victims 'Frozen Solid'
Authorities Rule Out Terrorism in Loss of Cypriot Jet
By Brian Williams and Karolos Grohmann, Reuters
ATHENS, Greece (Aug. 15) - Most of the bodies recovered from the Cypriot plane that crashed into a mountain near Athens with 121 people on board were ''frozen solid,'' a Greek Defense Ministry source said on Monday.
''Autopsy on passengers so far shows the bodies were frozen solid, including some whose skin was charred by flames from the crash,'' the source, with access to the investigation, told Reuters.
Early indications suggest the 115 passengers and six crew were dead or unconscious when the Helios Airways Boeing 737 plunged to earth on Sunday. There were no survivors.
Rescue workers recovered the pilot's body and said they had also found the plane's black box flight recorders, including the one that records pilot conversations, crucial to determining the cause of the worst air disaster in Greece and the worst involving a Cypriot airline.
Relatives of some victims, many already enraged by delays in Helios Airways releasing details of passengers on board, were on their way from Cyprus to the crash site near Athens to start the grim task of trying to identify loved ones.
At Larnaca airport in Cyprus, from where the doomed plane took off on Sunday, crew and passengers on Monday refused to board an aircraft belonging to Helios Airways, the state-run Cyprus News Agency reported.
About 100 passengers due to fly from Larnaca to Sofia demanded to travel on planes of other airlines. ''First the crew refused to board, then the passengers,'' it said.
The Mediterranean island of Cyprus started three days of mourning with flags at half mast in a long weekend holiday that is the busiest of the summer for Greeks and Cypriots.
Sunday's crash perplexed aviation experts astounded by what appeared to have been a catastrophic failure of cabin pressure or oxygen supply at 35,000 feet -- nearly six miles up, higher than Mount Everest.
Many questions remained, including how the plane appeared to fly for nearly an hour with the pilot and co-pilot already unconscious or dead. Media speculated the plane may have been on auto pilot before its approach to Athens airport.
There was also mystery over the last minutes of the flight which was declared ''renegade'' when it entered Greek air space and failed to make radio contact, causing two F-16 air force jets to scramble to investigate.
Terrorism Ruled Out
Cypriot Transport Minister Haris Thrassou strongly denied some media reports that there were 48 children among the dead.
''There were between 15 and 20 young people below the age of 20 on board the crashed plane,'' he told Reuters, adding they were all traveling with their families.
The plane was on a flight from Larnaca to Prague with a stop in Athens when it came down 40 km (25 miles) north of the Greek capital. Greek authorities ruled out hijacking or terrorism links to the crash.
Greek Defense Ministry officials said 90 minutes elapsed between the alert being raised at 10:30 a.m. and the plane crashing at 12:03 p.m.
Greek government spokesman Theodore Roussopoulos said F-16 pilots sent to investigate reported that with the pilots out of action there may have been a last-gasp effort by others on the plane to bring it back under control.
''The F-16s saw two individuals in the cockpit seemingly trying to regain control of the airplane,'' Roussoupoulos told reporters. It was not known if they were passengers or other crew.
''The F-16s also saw oxygen masks down when they got close to the aircraft. The aircraft was making continuous right-hand turns to show it had lost radio contact.''
''A passenger on the doomed plane said in an SMS text to his cousin in Athens: ''The pilot has turned blue. Cousin farewell, we're freezing.''
The Defense Ministry said it suspected the plane's oxygen supply or pressurisation system may have malfunctioned, which could have led to death within seconds for all on board.
Loss of cabin pressure was identified as the probable cause of two similar but smaller-scale air crashes in recent years.
Golfer Payne Stewart and five others were killed when their Learjet aircraft crashed in the United States in 1999 after flying for more than four hours without radio contact.
In 2000 a plane crashed in Australia after flying for more than an hour from 25,000 feet up with no sign of life on board.
Greek media speculated toxic gas from possible faulty air-conditioning could have incapacitated the two pilots. Reut05:38 08-15-05
Reut05:38 08-15-05
