Helios Airways Flight 522

On August 14, 2005, **Helios Airways Flight 522** covered the route between Larnaca International Airport (Cyprus), and Ruzyně International Airport (Prague, Czech Republic), with a stopover in Athens (Greece). The aircraft, a Boeing 737, crashed on a mountain at 09:04 UTC on that day, near Grammatiko, 40 km north of Athens while on approach to Athens airport capital, killing all 115 passengers and 6 crew members on board.

It is the deadliest aviation disaster in Greek history.

## Flight crew

The flight captain was Hans-Jürgen Merten, a 59-year-old pilot had a total of 16,900 flight hours, 5,500 of them on Boeing 737s.

The first officer was Pampos Charalambous, a 51-year-old Cypriot pilot who had flown exclusively on Helios for the last five years, accumulating 7,549 flight hours throughout his career, 3,991 of them on the Boeing 737.

## Chronology

|Time|Event|
| --- | --- |
|colspan="2" style="text-align:center;"||
|colspan="2" style="text-align:center;"|Date: 14 August 2005 _All times Eastern European Summer Time (EEST) (UTC + 3) in 24 h format_|
|09:00|Scheduled departure|
|09:07|Departs Larnaca International Airport|
|09:12|Cabin Altitude Warning sounds at 12,040 feet (3,670 m)|
|09:14|Pilots report air conditioning problem|
|09:20|Last contact with crew; Altitude is 28,900 feet (8,809 m)|
|09:23|Now at 34,000 feet (10,400 m); Probably on autopilot|
|09:37|Enters Athens flight information region; Nicosia ATC informs Athens ATC that radio contact has been lost. Aircraft begins circling Athens on autopilot|
|10:12–10:50|No response to radio calls from Athens ATC|
|10:45|Scheduled arrival in Athens|
|10:54|Athens Joint Rescue Coordination Centre alerted to possible renegade aircraft|
|11:05|Two F-16 fighters depart Nea Anchialos|
|11:24|Located by F-16s over Aegean island of Kea|
|11:32|Fighters see co-pilot slumped over, cabin oxygen deployed, no signs of terrorism|
|11:49|Fighters see an individual in the cockpit, apparently trying to regain control of aircraft|
|11:50|Left (#1) engine stops operating, presumably due to fuel depletion|
|11:54|CVR records a total of five mayday messages|
|12:00|Right (#2) engine stops operating|
|12:04|Aircraft crashes in mountains near Grammatiko, Greece|

## Passengers

The bodies of 118 people were recovered. The passenger list included 93 adults and 22 children. The passengers comprised 103 Cypriot nationals and 12 Greek nationals.

||Nationality|||Passengers|||Crew|||Total|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|Cyprus|103|4|107||||||||
|Germany|0|1|1||||||||
|Greece|12|1|13||||||||
|**Total**|115|**6**|121||||||||

## Cause

The cause of the accident was due to the fact that after takeoff, as the aircraft gained altitude, a failure when configuring the pressurization regulator caused the loss of consciousness of both the pilots and the passengers due to hypoxia, turning the aircraft into a "ghost flight" that was only kept flying by the operation of the autopilot.  Finally, already over Greek territory, it hit a hill due to lack of fuel.

## Other accidents

The accident was the largest in the history of Greek aviation, along with one of the most serious in August 2005, a dark month for commercial aviation, which also featured, among others, the tragedies of West Caribbean Airways Flight 708 and TANS Perú Flight 204.

## Other websites

- Aircraft Incident Report of Helios Airways Flight HCY522 at Grammatiko, Greece on 14 August 2005 (published in English, released in November 2006)
- Complete report of the official investigation by the Greek air safety investigations committee (published in Greek, released in October 2006).

## Infobox (aircraft occurrence)

- **occurrence type**: Accident
- **name**: Helios Airways Flight 522
- **image**: Helios Airways Boeing 737-300 5B-DBY PRG 2005-3-31.png
- **caption**: 5B-DBY, the Boeing 737-31S involved in the accident
- **type**: Crashed following crew incapacitation due to Uncontrolled decompression, loss of pressurization
- **site**: Grammatiko, Marathon, Greece
- **occupants**: 121
- **passengers**: 115
- **crew**: 6
- **fatalities**: 121
- **survivors**: 0
- **aircraft type**: Boeing 737-300, Boeing 737-31S
- **aircraft name**: _Olympia, Greece, Olympia_
- **tail number**: 5B-DBY
- **operator**: Helios Airways
- **origin**: Larnaca International Airport, Larnaca, Cyprus
- **stopover**: Athens International Airport, Greece
- **destination**: Prague Václav Havel Airport, Prague Ruzyně Int'l Airport, Prague, Czech Republic
- **iata**: ZU522
- **icao**: HCY522
- **callsign**: HELIOS 522