President Tassos Papadopoulos has called on two European Union experts, who arrived here for contacts with the Cypriot authorities, to apply all their knowledge, expertise and professionalism in order to investigate fully the Helios plane crash, near Athens, ten days ago that resulted in the death of all 121 people on board, mostly Cypriots.
Communications and Works Minister Haris Thrasou made the statement after Jean-Paul Henrotte, expert of the Directorate General Energy and Transport of the European Commission and Francois Janvier of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) were received today by President Papadopoulos.|
Thrasou said the President thanked the experts for accepting the government’s invitation to come to Cyprus and “asked them to use their knowledge, experience and professionalism to carry out an in-depth investigation and ascertain if there are any responsibilities so that these can be attributed, irrespective of the rank of any person or any government department or organisation that might be involved”.
Thrasou said President Papadopoulos had told the experts they would be welcome to return to Cyprus with additional staff, should they need to do so, for more work in order to draw the right conclusions.
The experts will remain in Cyprus for two days and return to Brussels to evaluate their findings.
Thrasou said the experts work independently of anybody else and their work does not replace the inquiries carried out in Cyprus and in Greece.
The minister said the experts would begin with investigations at the Civil Aviation Department and would have at their disposal all documents and anything they require. He said they had asked to meet the new director of the Department Leonidas Leonidou.
Asked if the findings would be legally binding or mere recommendations to the government, the minister said although their conclusions would be recommendations, the authorities can evaluate the report and if there are any criminal responsibilities, then they can act on them.
The Minister said he was not aware of a meeting with Helios airline officials, adding that the experts would decide on their agenda.
Earlier, during a meeting with the experts, Thrasou said “I asked for their help, experience and knowledge to investigate in depth the procedures and possible gaps in the Civil Aviation Department and most of all their proposals to upgrade our services”.
Thrasou said the experts had expressed readiness to offer their knowledge not only during their short stay but also at a later stage.
Meanwhile, Head investigator of Air Accidents in Athens Akrivos Tsolakis told CNA that very soon he visit Cyprus to meet the relevant Cypriot authorities so that both sides can cooperate before making public the conclusions of the investigations into the air crash.
An Helios Airways Boeing 737, bound for Prague via Athens from Larnaca, crashed on August 14 near the Greek capital killing all 121 people on board.
