Plane Crash Kills 121 In Greece

A Cypriot plane crashed into a hill north of Athens on Sunday, killing all 121 people aboard — a third of them children — in Greece's deadliest airline disaster. At least one of the pilots was unconscious when the plane went down, apparently from lack of oxygen.

The Helios Airways flight ZU522 was headed from Larnaca, Cyprus, to Athens International Airport when it crashed at 12:05 p.m. near the town of Grammatiko, about 25 miles north of the Greek capital, leaving flaming debris and luggage strewn across a ravine and surrounding hills.

The Boeing 737, carrying 115 passengers and six crew, was to have flown onto Prague, Czech Republic, after stopping in Athens.

There were 48 children on board. CBS News Correspondent Larry Miller reports the children were Greeks returning from a vacation to Cyprus.

The cause of the crash was unclear, but it looked like a technical problem — possibly decompression — and not terrorism. "The first indications, in Cyprus and in Greece, are that it was not caused by a terrorist act," said Marios Karoyian, a spokesman for Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos.

Family members wept in anguish as they waited at the Athens and Larnaca airports. When news of the crash emerged at Larnaca, relatives swarmed the airline counters, shouting "murderers" and "you deserve lynching." One woman, Artemis Charalambous, said she was the mother of one of the pilots.

A man whose cousin was a passenger on the plane told Greece's Alpha television he received a cell-phone text message minutes before the crash. "He told me the pilots were unconscious. ... He said: "Farewell, cousin, here we're frozen," Sotiris Voutas said.

The head of the Greek airline safety committee, Akrivos Tsolakis, described the crash as the "worst accident we've ever had." He said the plane's black boxes had been discovered at the scene, containing flight data and voice recordings valuable for determining the cause.

"There apparently was a lack of oxygen, which is usually the case when the cabin is depressurized," Tsolakis said.

The plane lost contact with Greek and Cypriot air traffic control 23 minutes after takeoff. Two F-16 fighter jets were dispatched shortly after the plane entered Greek air space over the Aegean Sea and did not respond to radio calls — a standard Greek practice.

When they intercepted the plane, the jet pilots could see the co-pilot slumped over his seat. The captain was not in the cockpit, and oxygen masks were dangling inside the cabin, government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos said.

He said the jet pilots also saw two people apparently trying to take control of the plane, but it was unclear if they were members of the crew or passengers.

"It looks like the plane was on automatic pilot" when it crashed, Helios spokesman Marios Konstantinidis said at Larnaca airport, in Cyprus.

The F-16 jets met the plane at 34,000 feet, a Greek air force spokesman said. At that altitude, depressurization is extremely serious because its effects happen so quickly, said David Kaminski Morrow, deputy news editor of the British-based Air Transport Intelligence magazine.

"If the aircraft is at 30,000 feet, you don't stay conscious for long, maybe 15 to 30 seconds. It is like standing on top of Mount Everest," he said. "But if you are down at 10,000 feet, you can breath for a lot longer."

Greek state television quoted Cyprus Transport Minister Haris Thrasou as saying the plane had decompression problems in the past. However, Helios representative Dimitriou said the plane had "no problems and was serviced just last week."

On Cyprus, several callers to radio and television programs devoting their broadcasts to the crash said they experienced severe air-conditioning problems when flying on similar Helios jets in recent months. Some said the cabin was freezing and the crew had to provide them with blankets, while others said it became unbearably hot.

Sudden loss of cabin pressure was blamed for a similar crash in South Dakota in October 1999. A private Learjet 35 lost pressure, leaving pro golfer Payne Stewart and four others unconscious. The twin-engine jet went down in a pasture after flying halfway across the country on autopilot.

In June 2000, a Boeing 737-200 of the Canadian carrier WestJet lost cabin pressure soon after lift off because pilots mistakenly shut down the auxiliary power, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada determined. The cabin altitude reached 24,000 feet before the plane descended and pressurization became normal. None of the 118 passengers was injured.

In the Greek crash, the only piece of the plane that remained intact was the tail section. Bits of human flesh, clothing, and luggage were scattered around the wreckage, which also started brush fires around the area.

More than 100 firefighters, aided by eight special planes and three helicopters dropping water, fought a huge brush fire caused by the crash. Parts of the remains of the plane were engulfed by the fire. The plane broke up into at least three pieces: the tail, a bit of the cockpit and a piece of the fuselage section that witnesses said contained a large group of bodies.

Fire trucks and ambulances crowded roads near the crash site. A number of black-robed Greek Orthodox Christian were also on the scene. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending four representatives to help investigate.

Rescue workers and residents on the scene said they had found no survivors.

"There is wreckage everywhere. I am here, things here are very difficult, they are indescribable," Grammatiko Mayor George Papageorgiou said. "I am looking at the back tail. The fuselage has been destroyed. It fell into a chasm and there are pieces. All the residents are here trying to help."

Helios Airways was founded in 1999 as Cyprus' first private airline. It operates a fleet of Boeing 737 jets to cities including London; Athens; Sofia, Bulgaria; Dublin, Ireland; and Strasbourg, France.

Greek Prime Minister Costas Caramanlis canceled a holiday on the Aegean island of Tinos to return to Athens to deal with the crash. The Cypriot president also canceled a vacation.