Plane may have been hijacked

2005-08-14 12:40

Athens - A Cypriot Boeing 737 airliner with 121 people on board from Larnaca, Cyprus, crashed apparently pilotless on Sunday near Athens, a traffic controller at Athens international airport told AFP.

Just before the crash, airforce crew observed the airline's pilots doubled up in the cabin, the controller said.

A spokesperson for the Greek army chief-of-staff said hijacking "could not be ruled out".

"An act of piracy is likely," said the spokesperson, Gerassimos Kalpoyannakis. The pilots of the two F16 fighters that were sent up to escort the airliner before the crash "saw a situation that was not normal in the pilots' cabin."

Kalpoyannakis said the plane crashed at Varnava, an uninhabited area about 40 kilometres northeast of Athens and not on the Euboea peninsula as previously reported by the Athens control tower.

He said teams of rescue workers, fire-fighters and ambulances were on their way to the scene and that all the hospitals in the region had been placed on emergency status.

There was no immediate word on casualties.

"The plane has crashed," said Iannis Pantazatos, who was in charge of the Athens airport control tower. "The information was given to us by the air force, which sent two fighters to escort the aircraft."

Shortly before the plane crashed, Pantazatos told AFP: "The airport lost all contact with the plane, which should have landed in the late morning, and two air force planes sent up in reconnaissance found it flying above the Euboea peninsula, but they saw the pilots doubled up in the cabin."

"We do not know how the plane is flying. It is being escorted by the military planes and the airport is in a state of emergency." he said.

The Helios airways plane was reported to be carrying 115 passengers and six crew.

Helios, established in 1999, is the first private airline in Cyprus. It had a fleet of four Boeing 737 jets and operated flights to London, Athens, Sofia, Dublin and Strasbourg in France.

- SAPA