CYPRUS: Families remember the Helios air disaster

Relatives of the Helios air crash victims on Tuesday held the annual memorial service of their beloved ones, marking 13 years since the island’s worst air disaster costing the lives of all 121 people on board.

The memorial service took place at the crash site of Grammatikos, north of Athens, where the Helios Airways Flight 522 went down. A small chapel was built there in honour of the victims.

Around 60 Greek Cypriot relatives attended the memorial service. The government was represented by the Ambassador of the Republic of Cyprus in Athens, Kyriacos Kenevezos. The memorial was also attended by Greek relatives of victims as well as by residents of the area.

Wreaths were laid on behalf of President Nicos Anastasiades, House speaker Demetris Syllouris and parliamentary parties DISY and AKEL.

"Thirteen years today since the tragedy at Grammatikos which shocked Cyprus," Syllouris wrote on Twitter.

“Our thoughts remain with the families of the 121 victims of the air accident of Helios and of our duty as a state towards them. We shall not forget," he added.

The Boeing took off from Larnaca Airport, on the 14 August 2005 on its way to Prague via Athens.

Three hours later it crashed on the mountain of Grammatikos killing all 121 passengers and crew.

Aboard the plane were 115 passengers, 103 Cypriots and 12 Greeks – mostly families going on their summer holidays – and a crew of six.

A lack of oxygen incapacitated the crew mid-flight, leading to the eventual crash of the aircraft, after it ran out of fuel, into a mountain at Grammatikos, some 40 kilometres north of Athens.

The lack of oxygen was triggered by the failure of a ground engineer running a pressurisation test prior to take-off, to reset the pressurisation system’s setting to ‘auto’ from ‘manual’, investigators later found.

With 121 fatalities, the Helios crash was the deadliest aviation disaster in Cypriot and Greek history.