Helios Flight 522 Crash: 21st Anniversary of the Grammatiko Air Disaster
Twenty-one years ago today, on August 14, 2005, a Boeing 737-31S passenger aircraft operated by Helios Airways went down in the hills near Grammatiko, north of Athens, killing all 121 people on board. The flight had left Larnaca bound for Prague with a stop in Athens, and what happened in between became one of the most studied aviation tragedies in modern history.
What Went Wrong That Morning
Flight HCY522 entered Athens airspace without ever making contact with the control tower. Two F-16 fighter jets scrambled from Nea Anchialos and made visual contact around 11:18, spotting the co-pilot unconscious and the captain absent from his seat, with oxygen masks already deployed throughout the cabin. A cabin crew member, Andreas Prodromou, was the only person still conscious. He tried to reach the controls but couldn't manage it in time. The aircraft crashed at 12:04, killing all 115 passengers and six crew, among them 22 children.
The Cause Behind the Tragedy
An investig…
Read more