They were instructed to check for signs of terrorism but found none. Consequently, two F-16s were dispatched by the Hellenic Air Force of Greece to locate the aircraft.Īround 20 minutes later, the F-16 spotted the faulty aircraft. The situation started to worsen now as the flight should have touched down by now, but still it was at F元40. It had no further contact with ATC since the captain had stopped speaking to the ground engineer, therefore continuous attempts were made to re-establish contact but every effort was unsuccessful.įlight 522 followed its autopilot controlled flight path and entered Athens FIR without any confirmation, and then started a holding pattern at the same altitude. The aircraft stopped climbing after reaching its assigned cruising altitude of 34,000ft. The ground engineer asked multiple times regarding the pressurization panel as he was unsure if he switched it back to Auto, but the captain was unable to understand the question. The captain was startled and started to experience early symptoms of hypoxia although he kept on repeating that “cooling ventilation lights are off”.
The pilot reported an air conditioning problem to Air Traffic Control who forwarded his call to the ground engineer. Soon afterwards, multiple warnings sounded which were followed by the master caution light illuminating. Shortly after takeoff, the aircraft gave the Cabin Altitude Warning but the pilots ignored it as they assumed it to be the take-off configuration warning and continued their climb. The captain of this flight was a 58-year-old contract pilot, named Hans-Jurgen Merten, who had a total of 16,900 hours, along with first officer Pampos Charalambous who had been flying for the airline for the last 5 years. The aircraft left the ground with a negligible delay, and initiated its climb towards the cruising altitude.
The plane was to operate flight 522 to Prague with a stop-over at Athens at 10:45 a.m. Afterward, the aircraft was deemed to be okay for the next flight. Therefore, he moved the pressurization switch from auto to manual. The plane was inspected by the ground engineer to check if the aircraft was experiencing pressurization leakage at higher altitudes. Upon arrival, the crew reported to maintenance engineers that the door seal was frozen and some unusual noises were heard from the rear of the aircraft. The aircraft, a Boeing 737-300 registered as 5B-DBY, arrived at Larnaca, Cyprus, from London at 1a.m. Yes, this was the scenario of the fatal Helios flight 522. And the cause of fatalities was not due to the crash, since all passengers were either unconscious or dead way before the aircraft went down, despite the fact that there was neither any hijacking nor any threat. But you might have not heard that a plane crashed even though there was no bad weather, no engine issue, but still kept flying until fuel tanks ran dry and then eventually crashed. You might have normally heard that a plane crashed due to engine failure, or poor weather caused the pilots to lose control of the aircraft. Read Episode 1 looking at the Tenerife Airport Disaster of 1977 Helios Flight 522 Prologue In this episode he looks at the “Ghost Plane” that was Helios flight 522 on 14 August 2005.
Helios flight 522 series#
Syed Hassaan Khalid continues his series of articles looking at the world’s most notable aviation disasters and incidents.