Helios Airways Flight 522 (HCY 522 or ZU522) was a Helios Airways Boeing 737-31S flight that crashed on 14 August 2005 at 12:04 EEST into a mountain north of Marathon and Varnavas, Greece. Rescue teams located wreckage near the community of Grammatiko 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Athens. Hans Jurgen Merten, a former East German who was a contract pilot hired by Helios for the holiday flights, served as the captain. Pampos Charalambous, a Cypriot who flew for Helios, served as the copilot. The flight, which left Larnaca, Cyprus at 09:07 local time, was en route to Athens, and was scheduled to continue to Prague. The cause of the crash (according to air crash investigations) was that the air pressure valve was set to manual and was not switched back to auto after pressurisation test was completed. As a result, the cabin never pressurised during the ascent to 35,000 feet. The flight attendant seen in the cockpit managed to stay conscious by using the spare oxygen tanks carried in the passenger cabin. The aircraft was carrying 115 passengers and a crew of 6. The passengers included 67 due to disembark at Athens, with the remainder continuing to Prague. The bodies of 118 individuals have been recovered. The passenger list included 93 adults and 22 people under the age of 18. Cypriot nationals comprised 103 of the passengers and Greek nationals comprised the remaining 12. [wikipedia]
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