Mystery crash

last updated 8 January 2015

Athens

Investigators suspect that a sudden loss of cabin pressure may have caused the crash that killed all 121 people on board a Helios Air plane this week. The plane, bound from Cyprus to Prague with a stop in Athens, lost contact with air-traffic control an hour and a half after takeoff. Pilots of two Greek fighter jets, which flew alongside the plane for 40 minutes, said they saw the co-pilot unconscious in his seat but could not see the pilot. Initial reports said the 115 passengers and six crew might have frozen solid in the air, but autopsies on the first 20 bodies showed they were alive—if not necessarily conscious—on impact. If the plane lost pressure at 34,000 feet, those on board had just 30 seconds to put on oxygen masks before losing consciousness.