Athens News Agency: Daily News Bulletin in English, 05-08-16

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Probe deepens after black boxes found in worst air disaster in Greece

[02] Religious holiday marked by grief, PM says

[03] Turkey, US send condolences over air disaster

[04] Main opposition asks PM to resign as Culture minister

[05] Bank workers to strike Tuesday in protest at pensions law

[06] Children celebrate 1st birthday of Athens 2004 Olympics

[01] Probe deepens after black boxes found in worst air disaster in Greece

Athens, 16/8/2005 (ANA)

Grief-stricken relatives of Cypriots who died a day earlier on the Boeing B737 operated by Helios Airways arrived in Athens to identify the remains, described by coroners as frozen but charred on the surface and mostly damaged beyond recognition in Greece's worst air disaster.

Experts have speculated that the aircraft may have suffered one or more malfunctions involving compression, oxygen and cooling systems in both the cockpit and cabin. Cyprus-based Helios denies allegations that the aircraft had failed a pre-flight inspection.

The flight recorders carrying operational flight and voice data will be sent to a Paris laboratory but authorities said the black box containing the pilots' conversations was severely damaged and may offer few clues. A Greek accidents expert taking part in enquiries said the probe would take at least 10 days.

Media reports that a passenger aboard the ill-fated flight had sent a mobile phone text message to relatives turned out to be a hoax after police tracked the message to a man in Thessaloniki, who confessed to fabricating the message.

Greece's government says no evidence has emerged of terrorism or foul play, and has flatly rejected media speculation that two air force fighter jets sent to escort the rogue aircraft had been ordered to shoot down the plane on terrorist fears.

Authorities have confirmed that most passengers were Cypriot and the remainder Greek, while the aircraft captain was German. Among the dead were 12 children aged four and above, the health ministry said.

The airliner fell shortly after noon on Sunday in Grammatiko, an uninhabited area northeast of the capital, on a flight from Larnaca to Prague via Athens. The crash ignited a wildfire that spread through scrubland. The charred bodies lay amid broken parts of the plane scattered over a wide radius. The aircraft's tail was detached from the fuselage and appeared mostly intact.

Firefighters and rescue teams battled flames and billowing smoke at the site as military helicopters patrolled overhead.

Crew had notified Cypriot authorities of a fault in the aircraft's air conditioning unit on approaching Greek airspace, but made no contact with Greek air traffic controllers on entry. Civil aviation authorities alerted the air force in line with anti-terrorism measures.

Two F-16 fighter jets located the aircraft in the southern Aegean, but calls for identification went unheeded and the plane appeared to be out of control.

Flying at close quarters, air force officers saw that the aircraft's co-pilot had collapsed over the controls, and the captain could not be seen through the cockpit window. Overhead oxygen masks in the cabin section had dropped into place, a government spokesman said.

After reporting the aircraft as "renegade", or unidentified and out of control, the pilots tracked the airliner at about 38,000 feet until it began to lose height and slammed into a hillside.

In Cyprus, the managing director of Helios Airways, Dimitris Pantazis said that experts from the Boeing, the plane's manufacturer, would travel to Athens to help with enquiries.

Headquartered in Larnaca, Helios was founded in 1999 as the island republic's first private carrier. It was acquired in 2004 by the Libra Holiday Group, a major UK tour operator.

PM cuts short holiday, holds barrage of meetings: Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, who cut short a long holiday weekend on the island of Tinos, has held two days of back-to-back meetings with Greek and Cypriot ministers in Athens to handle the aftermath of the disaster and monitor the probe into its cause.

Karamanlis, who declared Tuesday a national day of mourning for the tragedy, has also conferred by telephone with Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos, who welcomed the response by Greek emergency services. Nicosia has sent a crisis management team to its embassy in Athens.

In Nicosia, the president's spokesman, Marios Karoyan said Cypriot authorities had ruled out terrorism in the incident on the basis of information received from Athens.

Among public figures to express condolences to relatives were the president of the republic, Karolos Papoulias, Karamanlis, and leaders of Greece's three main opposition parties.

No sign of sabotage, government says: Government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos said authorities saw no evidence of terrorism or foul play in the disaster.

In a late-night news conference on Sun-day, Roussopoulos also flatly rejected media speculation air force fighter jets sent to track the aircraft had shot down the plane as a counter-terrorism measure. "There was no such thought."

Shortly before the plane crashed, two people were viewed in the cockpit trying to regain control of the aircraft, but it was unclear whether they were other crew members or passengers, the spokesman said.

Helios Airways has been asked by the government to provide a detailed history of the aircraft's performance after reports that it had shown faulty operation in the past.

"The most likely thing is that a technical fault was involved, but we are looking into all possible causes and details. It would not be responsible to say anything yet about the cause of the descent," Roussopoulos added.

Helios plane grounded: Helios Airways denied allegations on Monday that a flight engineer had branded the Boeing 737-300 as unfit to fly a day before the disaster.

The company's chairman, Andreas Drakos, rejected reports that the engineer had resigned and that another engineer called to inspect the plane had deemed it safe; and that Helios had a fast staff turnover among engineers and technicians.

Drakos also denied that the captain scheduled to take the ill-fated Athens to Prague flight via Athens had refused his assignment and been replaced by a colleague.

"The aircraft underwent maintenance on the basis of international standards and civil aviation regulations," he claimed at a news conference in Cyprus.

A decompression fault on a flight between Warsaw and Larnaca had been fixed in London and the airliner been declared flight worthy both by a global maintenance company and by the aircraft's manufacturer.

Drakos declined to state the aircraft's previous history, saying the data would be given to authorities. In addition, he pledged that Helios' engineers would whole-heartedly cooperate with Greek authorities investigating the case.

Asked to comment on the grounding of one of Helios' flights earlier in the day after a refusal to fly by crew and then passengers, the chairman said staff on the roster were friends of dead crew members, and that the emotional side of the case was taken into account.

A flight to Bulgaria was suspended after the crew refused to board, and passengers demanded seats on other airlines or cash refunds.

On Sunday, distraught relatives of the dead had complained bitterly of the airline's refusal to inform them of the crash or its aftermath, with company staff instead asking them to note the names of anyone they believed had joined the ill-fated flight.

Other incoming flights on Sunday and Monday were unaffected and the company chartered two jets from Austrian Airways and Egypt Air to carry out its remaining schedules for the day.

Drakos confirmed that all Helios flights were running normally.

Victims' families to get compensation: Helios will offer the families of each victim an initial payment of 20,000 euros in compensation to cover immediate needs.

Managing Director Dimitris Pantazis told a news conference at Athens international airport on Monday that a final figure will be settled at a later date.

Helios Airways air crash - Search warrants: Attorney General of the Republic of Cyprus Petros Clerides has issued warrants giving authorization for search at the premises of Helios Airways, in connection to Sunday's crash of one of the airline's planes, Marios Karoyan, director of the President's Press Office has said.

"After the charges by Minister of Communications and Works and the Chief of Police, the Attorney General of the Republic has concluded it was necessary to issue warrants for search in the premises of Helios in order to attain documents or any other evidence which might be useful in the investigation of the possibility of penal offences", Karoyan said.

Attorney General Petros Clerides said that search by police at the Larnaca Helios Airways headquarters were in progress Monday night.

[02] Religious holiday marked by grief, PM says

Athens, 16/8/2005 (ANA)

"Our thoughts are with the victims' relatives," the premier told reporters after attending Mass at Athens Cathedral.

On the island of Hydra, Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens and All Greece said grief had overshadowed the religious holiday.

[03] Turkey, US send condolences over air disaster

Athens, 16/8/2005 (ANA)

In a telegram to his Greek counterpart, Erdogan expressed condolences on behalf of the government and Turkish public.

According to press information, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul also sent a condolences telegram to his Greek counterpart Petros Molyviatis.

US ambassador: Also sending condolences was the US ambassador in Athens, Charles Ries, who said the thoughts and prayers of the American people were with Greece and Cyprus.

[04] Main opposition asks PM to resign as Culture minister

Athens, 16/8/2005 (ANA)

"This is the least he can do as a token of self-criticism for his last 12 months in office," Papandreou said in a statement timed to coincide with the first anniversary of the opening a year ago of the Athens 2004 Olympics.

He accused premier Costas Karamanlis of failing to make proper use of Olympics facilities after the international event.

Greece was praised worldwide for its endeavor but the glory had passed due to the ruling New Democracy party's mistaken policies in the economy, tourism, volunteerism and the arts, Papandreou claimed.

[05] Bank workers to strike Tuesday in protest at pensions law

Athens, 16/8/2005 (ANA)

The stoppage follows a long weekend due to a public holiday on August 15.

The OTOE trade union says the law will hurt many of its members by raising the pensionable age and lowering supplementary pensions.

Before the bill gained parliamentary approval, the union had sought a single supplementary pension system for the sector and opposed alignment of pensions with the main state fund.

Bank employees staged a series of weekly 24-hour strikes in January and February this year and again in the spring before the bill became law after rejecting proposals by the government and employers.

[06] Children celebrate 1st birthday of Athens 2004 Olympics

Athens, 16/8/2005 (ANA)

"These stadium open-days will be held next year with children from all schools, not only in Attica, that enjoy athletics and Olympic sports. Celebration of the Olympics will continue," Deputy Culture Minister Fani Palli-Petralia told the children invited from summer camps.

She noted that the government had worked to repair and maintain sport facilities used in the games, and was proceeding well with a plan to employ them for public and private use in the future.

"This was a dream Olympics we held, in which the sole sponsor was the Greek, taxpaying public, which is why it is time for citizens to reap the benefit. Our approach is people-centered," Palli-Petralia said.

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