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Crash: Child was still alive
17/08/2005 12:11 - (SA)
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| A man leaves a mortuary in Greece after the plane crash near Athens. (AP) |
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Athens - A child of about five or six-years-old who was aboard the Cypriot airliner that crashed in Greece was still alive after the plane slammed into a mountainous area north of Athens, Greek state television quoted a coroner as saying on Wednesday.
Nikos Kalogrias, part of a team of six coroners involved in the investigation, said the child was still alive after the crash, but had suffered extensive head injuries, NET television said.
Helios Airways crashed on Sunday with 121 people on board. There were no survivors. A brush fire sparked by the crash burned through much of the debris and many of the human remains, and the child's body was found burned, NET said.
But an autopsy showed the child had inhaled soot generated by the fire, NET quoted Kalogrias as saying.
The medical examiners could not immediately be reached for comment, but Kalogrias was expected to issue the results of the autopsy later on Wednesday.
Someone tried to land plane
Meanwhile, a Greek daily on Wednesday reported that someone aboard the Cypriot airliner had "clearly" attempted to land the plane after both pilots were mysteriously incapacitated.
The pilot of one of the two Greek F-16 fighter jets sent after the Helios Airways airliner saw a person in a black vest and blue shirt removing the seemingly unconscious co-pilot from his seat with the help of an air hostess, the Kathimerini daily reported, quoting defence ministry sources.
The same person subsequently tried to communicate with the F-16 pilot, using gestures to "clearly" indicate he would try to land the plane. He stayed in the cockpit until the end, Kathimerini said.
Why this person was unable to communicate with the escorting F-16 via radio is still under investigation.
Authorities are also trying to determine how the people seen in the cockpit before the crash were apparently unaffected by whatever had incapacitated the plane's pilot and co-pilot.
Cypriot television last night reported that Helios Airways plane steward Andreas Prodromou, 25, was a trained pilot. He had reportedly opted to fly on the doomed flight on Sunday to be with his girlfriend, Haris Charalambous, who was a stewardess on board.
The effort to save the Cypriot Boeing 737 may have failed because of a lack of fuel, the Greek government suspects, as the airliner had been circling aimlessly near Athens for at least an hour.
The daily also speculates that the plane's controls could have frozen after being exposed to temperatures of -50°C at 35 000 feet, when the technical problem is believed to have arisen.
- AP
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