So these are plane crashes from around the world, but it's only for the countries that had a true crime case, if you don't see a plane crash in here, check my True crime from around the world book.
Warning, this book contains plane crashes and the a...
This plane crash takes us to the European country of Greece, which is located next to the following countries: Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Turkey.
WARNINGS OF A PLANE CRASH
A/N: The Ghana chapter didn't want to work and upload, that was about the crash of Allied Air Flight 111, if you want to read about that case.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Pictured above is the accident plane, pictured 3 days before it crashed.
Helios Airways Flight 522 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Larnaca, Cyprus, to Prague, Czech Republic, with a stopover in Athens, Greece, operated by a Boeing 737-300. Shortly after takeoff on the 14th of August 2005, Nicosia air traffic control (ATC) lost contact with the pilots operating the flight, named Olympia; it eventually crashed near Grammatiko, Greece, killing all 121 passengers and crew on board. It is the deadliest aviation accident in Greek history.
An investigation into the accident by Greece's Air Accident Investigation and Aviation Safety Board (AAIASB) concluded that the crew had failed to notice that the cabin pressurization system was set to "manual" during takeoff checks. A ground engineer had (allegedly) set it to "manual" to conduct testing before the flight, but had forgotten to restore it to "auto" afterward. This configuration was subsequently missed by the crew during their pre-flight checks. This caused the plane to gradually depressurize as it climbed, and resulted in everyone on board suffering from critical hypoxia, resulting in a "ghost flight". The negligent nature of the accident led to lawsuits being filed against Helios Airways and Boeing, with the former also being shut down by the Government of Cyprus the following year.
The aircraft involved, manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in 1998, was a Boeing 737-300 registered as 5B-DBY (5 Bravo- Delta Bravo Yankee) with serial number 29099. The aircraft was powered by two CFM International CFM56-3C1 engines.
The aircraft had arrived at Larnaca International Airport (IATA: LCA, ICAO: LCLK) from London Heathrow Airport (IATA: LHR, ICAO: EGLL) at 01:25am local time on the day of the accident. It was scheduled to leave Larnaca at 09:00am and fly to Prague Ruzyně International Airport (IATA: PRG, ICAO: LKPR), with a stop off at Athens International Airport (IATA: ATH, ICAO: LGAV), where it was due to arrive at 10:45am.
In command was Captain Hans-Jürgen Merten, a 59-year-old German contract pilot hired by Helios for holiday flights, who had been flying for 35 years (previously for East German airline Interflug from 1970 to 1991) and had accrued a total of 16,900 flight hours, including 5,500 hours on the Boeing 737. The first officer was Pampos Charalambous (Greek: Πάμπος Χαραλάμπους), a 51-year-old Cypriot pilot who had flown exclusively for Helios for the previous five years, accruing 7,549 flight hours throughout his career, with 3,991 of them on the Boeing 737. Louisa Vouteri (Greek: Λουΐζα Βουτέρη), a 32-year-old Greek national living in Cyprus, had replaced a sick colleague as the chief flight attendant.
