Air Emergency (2003–…): Season 4, Episode 10 - Ghost Plane - full transcript
Air traffic controllers lose contact to a Cypriot airliner flying towards Athens, Greece. Two F-16s are scrambled to investigate, but the plane soon crashes into a mountain.
High above Athens, Greece,
fighter-jets track a 737 as it circles the city
There is no answer from the passenger-plane...
...but there is someone at the controls.
More than a 100 people are on board
Every-bodies mind was going to high-jack
or terrorists
What has happened to the crew and passengers?
and who is flying the plane?
Brokkenpiloten Seizoen 4 Editie 10
Early morning, August 14th, 2005
The cabin crew of Helios Airways Flight 522
are preparing for their trip
from the island of Cyprus
to Athens, Greece
Andreas Prodromou is 25
He isn't supposed to be working today,
but he's taking the flight to spend some time
with his girlfriend
who also works for Helios
Prodromou is a flight attendant now,
but he has bigger plans
One day he wants to fly for Helios
His dream was to become a professional pilot
Personally,
I want him to stay in the family business
We often talked about this
In the cockpit,
the flight crew is occupied
with the daily routine
of preparing their
jet for take off
Captain Hans Merten is an East-German
a contract pilot,
hired by Helios for the busy holiday-season
'Almost done'
'Nearly'
His copilot is from Cyprus,
Pambus Herelambus has been exclusively
for Helios for the last 5 years
Before beginning any flight,
crews are required to perform
dozens of checks on various pieces
of on-board equipment
It is a routine, but necessary procedure.
Helios is a charter-airline,
of low cost fairs to Greece
It's a summer-weekend
and the plane is filled with families
In all there are 115 passengers
on the morning flight.
They are low fair, low freels
They don't even serve you refreshments
during small flight
but they offer another possibility
for the budget-minded traveller
Just a few minutes after 9:00 AM,
Helios Flight 522 lifts off
into the bright sunshine
This is Helios 522
Request cruising at 34000 ft
Helios 522, you are cleared to climb to 34000 ft
Have a good day
Minutes into the flight,
the plane is still climbing
towards its cruising altitude
Suddenly, an alarm blares in the cockpit
The flight crew is confused
The take-off configuration alarm
normally only sounds on the ground.
It tells pilots that their jet
is not ready for take off
The crew doesn't know
why it is sounding now.
Uncertain what the problem is,
the captain radios the Helios
Operation Centre at Larnaca Airport,
back in Cyprus
"Operations, this is Flight 522, over'
'Flight 522, what can I do for you?'
'we have a take off config warning on
'Pardon'
'Our take off config warning is on'
With the first alarm still beeping in the cockpit,
...things become even more confusing.
Their MASTER CAUTION alarm goes OFF.
It could indicate
that some systems on board are overheating.
'We now have a MASTER CAUTION
'I will give you an engineer,
522, just a minute.
'I find him very hard to understand,
his accent is quite thick
'Flight 522, what can I do for you?'
The ventilation cooling fan lights up
'Sorry, can you repeat?'
While the pilots and ground engineers
try to troubleshoot the 2 alarms
most passengers have no idea there is a problem...
...until...
'Everyone stay calm,
please remain seated'
'Everyone please put the oxygen mask on
completely over your mouth and nose'
The protocol was immediately to secure yourself,
grab an oxygen-mask, stay in your seat
if you can help passengers without getting up,
you could help them (and you should help them)
but you would not risk
the safety of any cabin crew member to go and help
the passenger which is 5 or 6 rows further up.
Their procedure would be
to grab their mask,
and wait for the aircraft to level
off or commence with the descend.
No one in the cabin knows what the problem is
They are waiting for information from the cockpit
The pilots are unaware that
the oxygen-masks in the cabin have dropped.
and they still don't know why
their take off configuration-warning is ON.
or why their systems are overheating
'This is normal'
'Can you please confirm your problem?'
But the engineer on the
ground is struggling
to get a clear picture of what is happening
in the air
'They are not switched off
'Can you confirm that the pressurization panel
is set to AUTO
There are my equipment cooling circuit breakers
'Behind the Captain's seat'
"Can you see them?'
There is something wrong with the electrics on 522
I had something to pick up from operations,
so I was there
I figured: Ow, not again,
one of our problems
so, I left
The problem doesn't seem serious
but as the plane continues to climb,
passengers still haven't received any information
from the cockpit.
'Helios 522, can you see the circuit breakers?'
And now, the engineer on the ground loses contact
with the aircraft.
It is less than 30 minutes after take off
and flight 522 is still on course.
The plane is high above the Mediterranean Sea
and headed straight towards Athens.
August 14th, 2005,
A Helios Airways 737 with 121 people on board
are circling in the sky near Athens
Shortly after leaving
the Island of Cyprus
2 different alarm have been
triggered on the plane
The flight crew is trying to solve the problem
with the help of ground engineers
But now,
radio contact with the plane has been lost.
Air Traffic Control cannot get any response
from the Captain or Copilot
The flight to Greece normally takes an 1,5 hour
but the passengers jet has been in the air
for two hours
circling in a holding pattern.
We hear that there was an airplane
which was flying to the Greek territory
and no communication
Every-bodies mind was going to high jack ...
or to terrorists
More than 3 million people live in Athens,
a plane slamming into the city
could cause an incredible loss of live
This is a runaway aircraft,
It is possibly high-jacked
or a terrorist's attack,
so , let us involve the military
The Greek Air force scrambles
two of its most sophisticated fighter-jets
to investigate the Helios plane.
One of the jets flies closer to the cockpit
Someone is in the Co-pilot's seat,
slummed over the controls.
but there is no sign of the Captain at all.
I can see one figure in the cockpit of Helios 522
It appears not responsive after I 8CY
checking the cabin
He can see passengers in their seats
but none of them react to the presence of the jet.
Then,
the pilot sees someone moving in the cockpit.
At the right control, there is one person moving
in the cockpit of Helios 522
I repeat:
There is one person inside the cockpit
Helios 522, do you read, over
Flight 8CY, 522
this is the radar control
The F16's continue shadowing the jet.
but there is no response at all from the cockpit.
One of them was actually in the shooting position
behind the 737
the other one was nearby the cockpit
and was trying to communicate visually...
...with the person in the cockpit
Suddenly, the 737 turns left
and begins to quickly descend
Helios 522 turning sharply,
following down
From more than 10,000 meters,
the plane drops towards the ground
Then, 2200 meters above the ground,
the person in the Captain's seat
acknowledges the fighter jet
for the very first time.
but no words are exchanged.
Neither the fighter pilot,
nor local Air Traffic Control,
can make radio contact with the jet
Just after 12:00, almost 3 hours
after it took off from the island of Cyprus
Helios Flight 522 ...
...slams into the ground.
'8CC,
Helios 522 is down'
I repeat, Helios 522 is down.
'On Grammatiko hill'
Fire- and rescue workers rush to the crash-site.
There are no survivors.
Flight attendant Lazaros Temetzian
is stunned by what he hears
at the company's Operation Centre.
It was the most chaotic scene I have ever seen
When I went back, our Operation's Controller
said that he had lost the aircraft
and then his eyes
he started to cry.
Helios is a small company
with just 3 jets
Members of the cabin crew
have been working together for years.
For Paul Symeonides
news of the crash is particularly terrifying
He is a flight-attendant for the airline,
and so is his fiancée.
I think it must have been
the worst 30 minutes of my life
following that first image because
Victoria was flying that morning to Glasgow
every person I knew was calling me up
to find out if I am alive,
if Victoria is alive
What happened,
why it happened.
Andreas Prodromou's
father didn't know
his son had been called to fill in on Flight 522
I got worried
I called Andreas' phone
He always had it on
and unfortunately... he wouldn't answer.
After that phone call
I felt as if the ground was pulled out
from under my feet
It is the worst air crash in the history of Greece
Most of the 121 victims are from Cyprus
The small island nation declares
3 days of mourning, following the crash
It is an eerie disaster
For over an hour,
Air traffic Controllers watched the
passengers jet fly in radio silence
closer and closer to Athens
with no idea of what was happening inside the jet.
Now, piece by piece,
investigators are trying to find out.
So, we climbed over the hill and there we were
now facing this situation
which was beyond any description
I saw a great area in front of me
which was burning
It was black, burning,
People spread
pieces of the airplane
Investigators immediately start looking
for the cause of the crash
In the early days,
their efforts take a frustrating turn.
They recover the box, containing the CVR
But the recorder itself has been thrown clear
It was difficult for us because
we first found the case of the CVR.
Very badly damaged
and we couldn't find the machine itself.
Investigators need to know
what happened to the pilots.
Without the CVR,
they have little to go on.
'Keep looking, let's hope we can find it
Bodies, recovered from the wreckage
are brought to the offices of Athens' chief corner
Autopsies add more mystery to the case
Everyone on-board the plane was alive
at the time of the crash
There were scenarios at the time
that they had all died in mid-air
But the truth
They did not die from inhaling a toxic substance
in the airplane
...or from an explosion
The people died on impact
But if the passengers were alive the entire flight
why didn't the pilot of the fighter jet see
any activity inside the cabin?
And who was at the controls
as the jet circled over Athens?
When investigators find tissue samples
in the remains of the cockpit
they make a stunning discovery
The person at the controls of the plane
when it crashed,
was flight attendant Andreas Prodromou,
a last minute addition to the cabin crew
But why was he in the cockpit?
Was he trying to save the plane?
or did he deliberately fly it into the ground?
August, 2005.
The hunt for the cause of a
mysterious airplane crash in Greece
is now focused on finding the
missing Cockpit Voice Recording
Just before the plane went down,
flight attendant Prodromou was seen in the cockpit
but investigators don't know
what he was doing there
Several days after finding
the outer case of the CVR
investigators find the recording itself
When chief-investigator Akrivos Tsolakis listens
to the final moments of the flight
it answers a vital question
This was no terrorist's act
Prodromou was calling for help
Tsolakis hears 5 separate Mayday's on the tape
even though none of them were heard
by Air Traffic Controllers
From the first moment that they saw
someone in the cockpit,
believe me, I was certain it was Andreas
He wasn't a coward
He knew something about planes
and he had the capacity to do something.
In fact,
Prodromou had his commercial pilots license
It was the first step towards his goal
of becoming a captain for Helios.
But all of his training wouldn't have helped
save the jet
When he was seen at the controls,
flight 522 had been in the air for almost 3 hours
And the reason the Helios plane seem to
veer away from the F16's following it
was because its left engine was out of fuel
No matter what caused the alarms to sound
the ultimate reason for the crash was simple
The Flight Data Recorder
and the Cockpit Voice Recorder
gave us absolute proof.
The plane ran out of fuel
and this was the cause of the crash
Scheduled as a 90 minute-flight,
the plane didn't have enough fuel
to stay in the air for over 3 hours
But why had the plane flown so much longer
than it was supposed to?
Tsolakis now knows who was in the cockpit
and why it crashed
But to fully understand the mystery,
he needs more information
His investigators uncover a suspicious history
of maintenance issues with the Helios' jet
Issues that could help explain what happened
on Flight 522
A Helios ground-engineer tells Tsolakis
that on the very day of Flight 522
the 737 had a problem with its back-door
We checked the flight log for the trip
we saw that we had to do some
on schedule maintenance
The plane had arrived in Cyprus,
just after midnight on August, 14th
The cabin crew had heard loud banging noises
and saw ice on the rear service door
during the flight
It was scheduled to take off again
just hours later
Soon after it landed,
engineers began checking the problem
To make sure there is nothing wrong
with the seal on the door,
the engineers run a pressurization-test.
During normal flight,
the plane's engines force air into the cabin.
To ensure
oxygen circulates during the trip,
small valves in the rear allow some of it
to leak out
A pressurized airplane is essentially
is like a pressurized can
We pressurize the airplane
so that the people inside
can survive the environment
where the airplane
likes to operate in
Switching the digital pressure control unit
from AUTO to MANUAL
Without the jet's engines running,
the engineer uses the plane's
auxiliary power unit
to force air into the aircraft.
And the cabin is pressurized for several minutes.
It is like looking for a leak in a tyre
In this case, what you are having to do
is pressurize the aircraft
using a barometer to monitor the pressure inside
and look for leaks that way
But there is no indication any air is escaping
through the back-door
In this case, they felt
that it was all right
and they completed the test
The entire jet seems to be in good working order
After performing a series of additional
routine-maintenance-procedures,
the engineers signed off on their technical log.
Investigators are faced with a dead end.
An explosive decompression could
have explained the tragic event
of Flight 522
If the oxygen had been
suddenly sucked out of the jet
everyone on board could have been overcome
But not only did the engineers check the problem,
when the F16's approach the plane near Athens,
no damage was seen.
There was no indication
that the fuselage was punctured.
Investigators are still struggling
to solve the mystery
What had overcome the passengers and crew
of Helios Flight 522?
and why was one flight attendant
apparently unaffected?
The discovery of one small switch
holds the key...
...to the entire crash.
The crash of Helios Flight 522
was one of the most mysterious air disasters ever
All investigators know for sure,
is that shortly after take off,
the crew stopped communicating
with Air Traffic Controllers
Then, after almost 3 hours in the air,
one of the plane's flight attendants
was seen at the controls.
Eventually the plane ran out of fuel and crashed,
killing 121 people.
But investigators are stunned
They still don't know what had happened
to the plane's Captain
or the rest of the crew
Tell me about what happened the day of the flight
They concentrate on the conversation
between the pilot and the Helios engineer
shortly after take off
As the plane pass through 3700 meters
an alarm sounded in the cockpit
Usually, the take off config warning
is only triggered on the runway
But the wreckage recovered at the crash site
reveals no problems with the plane's flaps,
landing gear
or anything else that could trigger the alarm
So, why had it sounded?
Chief investigator Akrivos Tsolakis
focuses on a small panel,
found in the wreckage of the ravaged jet.
'Are you sure this is the way it was found?'
'It hasn't been moved at all'
We were lucky finding this panel
which had the switch on the
MANUAL position was a major one
The P5 pressurization panel ensures
that passengers have enough air to breath
even at high altitudes.
Normally,
pressurization takes place automatically
As the jet climbs,
its engines force air into the plane
as they power it through the sky
But when the pressurization-switch
is set to MANUAL,
both the Captain and the Co-pilot
are responsible
for maintaining the cabin
atmosphere using the controller
'So, explain again how you tested the pressure'
I went into the cockpit,
I turned the pressurization-switch to MANUAL,
Tsolakis learns that during
the early morning maintenance-check on Helios 522
ground engineers have turned the P5 switch
to MANUAL
That allowed them to use the on-board generators
to test the pressure-seals on the rear-door
without starting the engines
When the test was over,
they didn't turn the switch back to AUTOMATIC
The procedure of pressurizing the aircraft
has to do with setting the
system from AUTO to MANUAL
It was supposed to return the selector
to the AUTO position
Several hours later,
when the flight crew entered the cockpit,
the pressurization-switch was still set to MANUAL
But neither the pilot nor co-pilot saw it
As a result,
after take-off the cabin would
not pressurize automatically
The higher Flight 522 climbed,
the thinner the atmosphere became
Not turning the switch back to AUTO,
was a deadly hidden danger.
Are you sure this is the way it was found?
It hasn't been moved at all?
Tsolakis believes
this panel could be the key to the disaster
Leaving one switch on MANUAL,
could have led to all the other problems
the plane faced
To prove he is right,
he takes an unusual,
potentially dangerous step
Four months after the crash of Helios Flight 522
the search for answers into the disaster
takes a highly unorthodox turn
Chief investigator Akrivos Tsolakis
takes an Olympic Airline 737 on the same route,
flown by the Helios jet.
If he is right about what caused the crash
this plane should react exactly
like the doomed airliner did.
'Are we ready to go?'
When there is a complicated accident like this,
I think the re-enactment should be performed
Of course it is expensive to have a jet liner
flying for 3 or 4 hours.
Make sure that P5 is set to MANUAL
Ah, it is hard to see
In the cockpit,
Tsolakis has the crew turned
the pressurization switch to MANUAL.
A green light indicates it is no longer on AUTO
but in the bright glare
of an early morning departure,
the light is hard to see
As the re-enactment flight climbs
oxygen is thinning quickly in the aircraft
The same thing happened on the Helios flight
triggering an alarm.
'That is it!'
'Take off config warning'
The alarm sounded
and that alarm was miss-interpret
Most of flight crew, they will never face an alarm
with no pressurization
in all their flight-carrier,
because it is a rare event
Tsolakis confirms that the alarm was triggered
because of the dangerously low
air-pressure in the aircraft
But he also discovers that the sound itself,
is identical to the take-off config warning
But even if the flight crew
did misinterpret the first alarm
they still had another chance
to determine what the real problem was
At almost 5000 meters,
the plane's MASTER CAUTION light flashed on
and stayed on for almost a minute
But once again
the pilots misinterpret
the cause of the alarm
The MASTER CAUTION light can indicate
that the plane's systems are overheating
But it can also tell pilots
the oxygen-masks are down
In this case,
it was doing both at the same time.
But since the crew didn't think
they were having pressurization problems
they focused on the plane's cooling systems.
The sensors
that were suppose to measure the temperature
and the pressure in that area
sensed that something was wrong.
On the recreation flight,
investigators monitor instruments
recording the same events
occurring on-board their aircraft
At the same time,
they also begin to feel the effects
of the lack of oxygen
The first feelings you start to have
your ears would pop
and start feeling pressure in you sinuses
As you climb higher you begin to feel almost giddy
It is almost like having a couple
of drinks of alcohol
The doodling oxygen-levels
could also help explain
some of the crew's
bizarre behaviour
When the ground-engineer asked
about pressurization
Captain Merten ignores the question
and responses with one of his own
'Where are my equipment cooling circuit-breakers?'
You really don't notice it at first,
It is amazing how subtle it can be
in the early phases.
It starts feeling dizzy,
They begin to lose the ability to think coherently
In a way, it traps you into the situation
You cannot react anything
Eventually, you are going to lose consciousness
Tsolakis believes
that the captain may have been checking
on the circuit-breakers behind his seat
when he and the copilot finally ran out of air.
and unlike in the cabin,
the oxygen-masks in the cockpit
do not automatically deploy
if the atmosphere begins to thin.
On the other side of the locked cockpit-door,
no-one in the cabin would have known
that the plane was now flying itself
Nor that they have realized that
the limitation of the passenger-oxygen-system
had sealed the fate of everyone in the cabin
The passenger-masks are supplied
by a chemical generator
above their seats
But the generators only produce enough oxygen
to last about 12 minutes
What they are designed to do
is to give you enough oxygen
so that you can survive
until the pilots get the airplane down
to a lower altitude
In almost every event where we had a decompression
that is been perfectly adequate
For those who did put their masks on,
they would have remained conscious
for several minutes
until their oxygen ran out.
Then, they too would have passed out
Once,you get up to 34000 ft
your talk and your useful consciousness
last 30 to 60 seconds
The hypoxia begins to cause losing consciousness
they just go to sleep
Without a flight crew,
Helios 522 would have continued
to Athens on autopilot
When the crew didn't take control,
the autopilot would have then put
the jet in a holding pattern
as it flew over the airport.
To avoid the same happening
on the reconstruction-flight,
Tsolakis restores pressure to the plane.
The reconstruction also answers another question
about the tragic flight
The cockpit Voice Recorder picked up
several strange noises
They are heard,
just before Prodromou enters the cockpit
Tsolakis confirms
that these sounds were made by Prodromou
using the electronic keypad to unlock the door
We confirm all those items
during the re-enactment-flight
and it was very useful
It filled a lot of gaps we had.
"Okay, take it down'
For chief-investigator Tsolakis,
the re-enactment flight has been convincing
There was no dramatic cabin-failure
instead, a series of small
mistakes and miss-understandings
had led to the worst
air disaster in Greek history
15 Months after the crash,
Greek authorities release the official report
on Helios Airways Flight 522
But mysteries remain
What was happening in the cabin
while the doomed airplane flew toward Athens?
And why was Andreas Prodromou the only one,
conscious at the very end?
The crash of Helios Flight 522 was the worst
disaster in the history of Greek aviation
Like many crashes,
it was a fatal combination of mechanical problems
and human error.
The final accident report details
a tragic series of oversights
and false assumptions, made by the flight crew.
Problems that could have been easily prevented,
turned deadly for a 121 people on board.
'Behind the captain's seat, can you see them?'
But what the final report does not do,
is explain what happened in the cabin of the plane
What actions did the flight attendants take?
and why was Andreas Prodromou still conscious
after almost 3 hours?
Interviews with Helios safety-instructors
and crew-members
paint a tragic picture of what may have occurred.
Everyone, please put your mask on,
I am not sure what the trouble is
Remain calm and please remain seated
Prodromou was sitting at the back of the cabin
When the oxygen-masks fell
he would have waited for instructions
from the cockpit
The flight attendant sitting at the front
of the plane would have done the same
But none of them would have waited forever.
We made it an issue at Helios to emphasize
that cabin crew should not entirely
depend on their procedures
but to think on their feet
and to adapt to any impending situation
In most de-pressurization,
the plane descends quickly
but as minutes passed on the Helios flight
the plane continued to climb
Unsure of what was going on,
Prodromou would have tried
to contact the flight crew
Captain Merten
But he gets no response
Can you give us an update, please
Captain Merten
With no word from the cockpit,
he would have soon realized
that this was not a typical de-pressurization.
When there was no call-out from the cockpit,
and the aircraft didn't start
an emergency-descend,
there was absolutely no protocol
They would be winging it
By now, Prodromou must have felt
that something was terribly wrong.
But to find out what the problem was,
he had to leave his seat
The oxygen available on the 737
is of course the drop-out oxygen
10% of those masks are available for the crew
in case of a de-pressurization incident
There were extra masks for every seat-row
Taking advantage of the extra passenger-masks,
he could have made his way
to the front of the plane
A process cabin crew call 'Monkey-swinging'
But if more than 12 minutes have passed,
his girlfriend and the other flight attendant
may have still been in their seats.
and like the passengers overcome by hypoxia
But Prodromou was a scuba-diver
and a former soldier
in the Cypriots special forces.
His training may have helped him
to stay alert a little longer
Andreas was not a coward
He was a brave person, fearless
Brave and very confident
But to survive
after the passenger oxygen system stopped working
he needed another solution
The 737 had 4 portable oxygen bottles
Using them would given him some freedom.
And while the F16 pilots saw Prodromou
in the cockpit just before the crash,
it may not have been the first time
he had gone in.
As he did at the of the flight,
he could have used the security-code
to unlock the door earlier
The procedure would be to enter the flight deck
via the cockpit door
Initially to bang on the door,
and then if no response is forthcoming
to enter the code
and enter the flight deck
during the accident-investigation,
DNA was discovered on an oxygen mask
in the cockpit that matched the copilots
It is possible Prodromou used it
to try and revive him
You can still revitalize somebody
for quite an extended period of time
if he get to him before major brain-damages set in
and that is somewhat variable situation,
depending on the person...
depending on how long they are exposed
to high altitude
But if he was in the cockpit earlier,
why did he leave?
No one will ever know.
Probably he was a little bit disoriented
a little bit confused
He is reacting a lot slower than he normally would
What was his state of mind?
What was his physical condition?
We think that he knew what was really the problem
but is that the real situation?
It is a real question
After 3 hours in the air,
everyone who didn't have bottled oxygen
would have been unconscious
As it approached Athens,
Flight 522 was now a ghost plane.
Most of the victims,
they probably still had heartbeats
when the airplane crashed
but were almost certain in an irreversible coma
Hypoxia is no more painful than falling asleep
but for Andreas Prodromou
the flight must have been a nightmare
As the F16's roar to meet the jet
and with his oxygen running out,
he must have known that he too
was almost out of time
Yet to the very end, he didn't give up
Prodromou made one last attempt to save the plane
When he returns to the cockpit,
the young flight attendant who dreamed
of becoming a pilot
calls for help
But no one can hear him
likely because the radio was still tuned
to Larnaca,
the airport on Cyprus
from where the flight had taken off.
Fighting hypoxia,
and struggling to control an airplane
larger than any he had ever flown
Prodromou was in an impossible situation.
Even if he could have landed the plane,
it was now too late
Flight 522 was out of time.
and fuel
There are pictures of Andreas in Cyprus
in the cemetery where he and his
girlfriend Harris are burred, side by side
As his father, my son is in front of me.
There I go, he is always there
He left a very big gap
we will never get over it.
There are pictures in Greece, too
On the hill,
North of Athens where Helios 522 crashed,
there are faded photographs
of many of those who died.
Bleached by the brilliant Mediterranean sun
they gaze over the rugged, ancient terrain
Silent witnesses to one of the worlds most bizarre
and tragic airline disasters
Narrator:
Stephen Bogaert
Subtitles:
Rein Croonen
fighter-jets track a 737 as it circles the city
There is no answer from the passenger-plane...
...but there is someone at the controls.
More than a 100 people are on board
Every-bodies mind was going to high-jack
or terrorists
What has happened to the crew and passengers?
and who is flying the plane?
Brokkenpiloten Seizoen 4 Editie 10
Early morning, August 14th, 2005
The cabin crew of Helios Airways Flight 522
are preparing for their trip
from the island of Cyprus
to Athens, Greece
Andreas Prodromou is 25
He isn't supposed to be working today,
but he's taking the flight to spend some time
with his girlfriend
who also works for Helios
Prodromou is a flight attendant now,
but he has bigger plans
One day he wants to fly for Helios
His dream was to become a professional pilot
Personally,
I want him to stay in the family business
We often talked about this
In the cockpit,
the flight crew is occupied
with the daily routine
of preparing their
jet for take off
Captain Hans Merten is an East-German
a contract pilot,
hired by Helios for the busy holiday-season
'Almost done'
'Nearly'
His copilot is from Cyprus,
Pambus Herelambus has been exclusively
for Helios for the last 5 years
Before beginning any flight,
crews are required to perform
dozens of checks on various pieces
of on-board equipment
It is a routine, but necessary procedure.
Helios is a charter-airline,
of low cost fairs to Greece
It's a summer-weekend
and the plane is filled with families
In all there are 115 passengers
on the morning flight.
They are low fair, low freels
They don't even serve you refreshments
during small flight
but they offer another possibility
for the budget-minded traveller
Just a few minutes after 9:00 AM,
Helios Flight 522 lifts off
into the bright sunshine
This is Helios 522
Request cruising at 34000 ft
Helios 522, you are cleared to climb to 34000 ft
Have a good day
Minutes into the flight,
the plane is still climbing
towards its cruising altitude
Suddenly, an alarm blares in the cockpit
The flight crew is confused
The take-off configuration alarm
normally only sounds on the ground.
It tells pilots that their jet
is not ready for take off
The crew doesn't know
why it is sounding now.
Uncertain what the problem is,
the captain radios the Helios
Operation Centre at Larnaca Airport,
back in Cyprus
"Operations, this is Flight 522, over'
'Flight 522, what can I do for you?'
'we have a take off config warning on
'Pardon'
'Our take off config warning is on'
With the first alarm still beeping in the cockpit,
...things become even more confusing.
Their MASTER CAUTION alarm goes OFF.
It could indicate
that some systems on board are overheating.
'We now have a MASTER CAUTION
'I will give you an engineer,
522, just a minute.
'I find him very hard to understand,
his accent is quite thick
'Flight 522, what can I do for you?'
The ventilation cooling fan lights up
'Sorry, can you repeat?'
While the pilots and ground engineers
try to troubleshoot the 2 alarms
most passengers have no idea there is a problem...
...until...
'Everyone stay calm,
please remain seated'
'Everyone please put the oxygen mask on
completely over your mouth and nose'
The protocol was immediately to secure yourself,
grab an oxygen-mask, stay in your seat
if you can help passengers without getting up,
you could help them (and you should help them)
but you would not risk
the safety of any cabin crew member to go and help
the passenger which is 5 or 6 rows further up.
Their procedure would be
to grab their mask,
and wait for the aircraft to level
off or commence with the descend.
No one in the cabin knows what the problem is
They are waiting for information from the cockpit
The pilots are unaware that
the oxygen-masks in the cabin have dropped.
and they still don't know why
their take off configuration-warning is ON.
or why their systems are overheating
'This is normal'
'Can you please confirm your problem?'
But the engineer on the
ground is struggling
to get a clear picture of what is happening
in the air
'They are not switched off
'Can you confirm that the pressurization panel
is set to AUTO
There are my equipment cooling circuit breakers
'Behind the Captain's seat'
"Can you see them?'
There is something wrong with the electrics on 522
I had something to pick up from operations,
so I was there
I figured: Ow, not again,
one of our problems
so, I left
The problem doesn't seem serious
but as the plane continues to climb,
passengers still haven't received any information
from the cockpit.
'Helios 522, can you see the circuit breakers?'
And now, the engineer on the ground loses contact
with the aircraft.
It is less than 30 minutes after take off
and flight 522 is still on course.
The plane is high above the Mediterranean Sea
and headed straight towards Athens.
August 14th, 2005,
A Helios Airways 737 with 121 people on board
are circling in the sky near Athens
Shortly after leaving
the Island of Cyprus
2 different alarm have been
triggered on the plane
The flight crew is trying to solve the problem
with the help of ground engineers
But now,
radio contact with the plane has been lost.
Air Traffic Control cannot get any response
from the Captain or Copilot
The flight to Greece normally takes an 1,5 hour
but the passengers jet has been in the air
for two hours
circling in a holding pattern.
We hear that there was an airplane
which was flying to the Greek territory
and no communication
Every-bodies mind was going to high jack ...
or to terrorists
More than 3 million people live in Athens,
a plane slamming into the city
could cause an incredible loss of live
This is a runaway aircraft,
It is possibly high-jacked
or a terrorist's attack,
so , let us involve the military
The Greek Air force scrambles
two of its most sophisticated fighter-jets
to investigate the Helios plane.
One of the jets flies closer to the cockpit
Someone is in the Co-pilot's seat,
slummed over the controls.
but there is no sign of the Captain at all.
I can see one figure in the cockpit of Helios 522
It appears not responsive after I 8CY
checking the cabin
He can see passengers in their seats
but none of them react to the presence of the jet.
Then,
the pilot sees someone moving in the cockpit.
At the right control, there is one person moving
in the cockpit of Helios 522
I repeat:
There is one person inside the cockpit
Helios 522, do you read, over
Flight 8CY, 522
this is the radar control
The F16's continue shadowing the jet.
but there is no response at all from the cockpit.
One of them was actually in the shooting position
behind the 737
the other one was nearby the cockpit
and was trying to communicate visually...
...with the person in the cockpit
Suddenly, the 737 turns left
and begins to quickly descend
Helios 522 turning sharply,
following down
From more than 10,000 meters,
the plane drops towards the ground
Then, 2200 meters above the ground,
the person in the Captain's seat
acknowledges the fighter jet
for the very first time.
but no words are exchanged.
Neither the fighter pilot,
nor local Air Traffic Control,
can make radio contact with the jet
Just after 12:00, almost 3 hours
after it took off from the island of Cyprus
Helios Flight 522 ...
...slams into the ground.
'8CC,
Helios 522 is down'
I repeat, Helios 522 is down.
'On Grammatiko hill'
Fire- and rescue workers rush to the crash-site.
There are no survivors.
Flight attendant Lazaros Temetzian
is stunned by what he hears
at the company's Operation Centre.
It was the most chaotic scene I have ever seen
When I went back, our Operation's Controller
said that he had lost the aircraft
and then his eyes
he started to cry.
Helios is a small company
with just 3 jets
Members of the cabin crew
have been working together for years.
For Paul Symeonides
news of the crash is particularly terrifying
He is a flight-attendant for the airline,
and so is his fiancée.
I think it must have been
the worst 30 minutes of my life
following that first image because
Victoria was flying that morning to Glasgow
every person I knew was calling me up
to find out if I am alive,
if Victoria is alive
What happened,
why it happened.
Andreas Prodromou's
father didn't know
his son had been called to fill in on Flight 522
I got worried
I called Andreas' phone
He always had it on
and unfortunately... he wouldn't answer.
After that phone call
I felt as if the ground was pulled out
from under my feet
It is the worst air crash in the history of Greece
Most of the 121 victims are from Cyprus
The small island nation declares
3 days of mourning, following the crash
It is an eerie disaster
For over an hour,
Air traffic Controllers watched the
passengers jet fly in radio silence
closer and closer to Athens
with no idea of what was happening inside the jet.
Now, piece by piece,
investigators are trying to find out.
So, we climbed over the hill and there we were
now facing this situation
which was beyond any description
I saw a great area in front of me
which was burning
It was black, burning,
People spread
pieces of the airplane
Investigators immediately start looking
for the cause of the crash
In the early days,
their efforts take a frustrating turn.
They recover the box, containing the CVR
But the recorder itself has been thrown clear
It was difficult for us because
we first found the case of the CVR.
Very badly damaged
and we couldn't find the machine itself.
Investigators need to know
what happened to the pilots.
Without the CVR,
they have little to go on.
'Keep looking, let's hope we can find it
Bodies, recovered from the wreckage
are brought to the offices of Athens' chief corner
Autopsies add more mystery to the case
Everyone on-board the plane was alive
at the time of the crash
There were scenarios at the time
that they had all died in mid-air
But the truth
They did not die from inhaling a toxic substance
in the airplane
...or from an explosion
The people died on impact
But if the passengers were alive the entire flight
why didn't the pilot of the fighter jet see
any activity inside the cabin?
And who was at the controls
as the jet circled over Athens?
When investigators find tissue samples
in the remains of the cockpit
they make a stunning discovery
The person at the controls of the plane
when it crashed,
was flight attendant Andreas Prodromou,
a last minute addition to the cabin crew
But why was he in the cockpit?
Was he trying to save the plane?
or did he deliberately fly it into the ground?
August, 2005.
The hunt for the cause of a
mysterious airplane crash in Greece
is now focused on finding the
missing Cockpit Voice Recording
Just before the plane went down,
flight attendant Prodromou was seen in the cockpit
but investigators don't know
what he was doing there
Several days after finding
the outer case of the CVR
investigators find the recording itself
When chief-investigator Akrivos Tsolakis listens
to the final moments of the flight
it answers a vital question
This was no terrorist's act
Prodromou was calling for help
Tsolakis hears 5 separate Mayday's on the tape
even though none of them were heard
by Air Traffic Controllers
From the first moment that they saw
someone in the cockpit,
believe me, I was certain it was Andreas
He wasn't a coward
He knew something about planes
and he had the capacity to do something.
In fact,
Prodromou had his commercial pilots license
It was the first step towards his goal
of becoming a captain for Helios.
But all of his training wouldn't have helped
save the jet
When he was seen at the controls,
flight 522 had been in the air for almost 3 hours
And the reason the Helios plane seem to
veer away from the F16's following it
was because its left engine was out of fuel
No matter what caused the alarms to sound
the ultimate reason for the crash was simple
The Flight Data Recorder
and the Cockpit Voice Recorder
gave us absolute proof.
The plane ran out of fuel
and this was the cause of the crash
Scheduled as a 90 minute-flight,
the plane didn't have enough fuel
to stay in the air for over 3 hours
But why had the plane flown so much longer
than it was supposed to?
Tsolakis now knows who was in the cockpit
and why it crashed
But to fully understand the mystery,
he needs more information
His investigators uncover a suspicious history
of maintenance issues with the Helios' jet
Issues that could help explain what happened
on Flight 522
A Helios ground-engineer tells Tsolakis
that on the very day of Flight 522
the 737 had a problem with its back-door
We checked the flight log for the trip
we saw that we had to do some
on schedule maintenance
The plane had arrived in Cyprus,
just after midnight on August, 14th
The cabin crew had heard loud banging noises
and saw ice on the rear service door
during the flight
It was scheduled to take off again
just hours later
Soon after it landed,
engineers began checking the problem
To make sure there is nothing wrong
with the seal on the door,
the engineers run a pressurization-test.
During normal flight,
the plane's engines force air into the cabin.
To ensure
oxygen circulates during the trip,
small valves in the rear allow some of it
to leak out
A pressurized airplane is essentially
is like a pressurized can
We pressurize the airplane
so that the people inside
can survive the environment
where the airplane
likes to operate in
Switching the digital pressure control unit
from AUTO to MANUAL
Without the jet's engines running,
the engineer uses the plane's
auxiliary power unit
to force air into the aircraft.
And the cabin is pressurized for several minutes.
It is like looking for a leak in a tyre
In this case, what you are having to do
is pressurize the aircraft
using a barometer to monitor the pressure inside
and look for leaks that way
But there is no indication any air is escaping
through the back-door
In this case, they felt
that it was all right
and they completed the test
The entire jet seems to be in good working order
After performing a series of additional
routine-maintenance-procedures,
the engineers signed off on their technical log.
Investigators are faced with a dead end.
An explosive decompression could
have explained the tragic event
of Flight 522
If the oxygen had been
suddenly sucked out of the jet
everyone on board could have been overcome
But not only did the engineers check the problem,
when the F16's approach the plane near Athens,
no damage was seen.
There was no indication
that the fuselage was punctured.
Investigators are still struggling
to solve the mystery
What had overcome the passengers and crew
of Helios Flight 522?
and why was one flight attendant
apparently unaffected?
The discovery of one small switch
holds the key...
...to the entire crash.
The crash of Helios Flight 522
was one of the most mysterious air disasters ever
All investigators know for sure,
is that shortly after take off,
the crew stopped communicating
with Air Traffic Controllers
Then, after almost 3 hours in the air,
one of the plane's flight attendants
was seen at the controls.
Eventually the plane ran out of fuel and crashed,
killing 121 people.
But investigators are stunned
They still don't know what had happened
to the plane's Captain
or the rest of the crew
Tell me about what happened the day of the flight
They concentrate on the conversation
between the pilot and the Helios engineer
shortly after take off
As the plane pass through 3700 meters
an alarm sounded in the cockpit
Usually, the take off config warning
is only triggered on the runway
But the wreckage recovered at the crash site
reveals no problems with the plane's flaps,
landing gear
or anything else that could trigger the alarm
So, why had it sounded?
Chief investigator Akrivos Tsolakis
focuses on a small panel,
found in the wreckage of the ravaged jet.
'Are you sure this is the way it was found?'
'It hasn't been moved at all'
We were lucky finding this panel
which had the switch on the
MANUAL position was a major one
The P5 pressurization panel ensures
that passengers have enough air to breath
even at high altitudes.
Normally,
pressurization takes place automatically
As the jet climbs,
its engines force air into the plane
as they power it through the sky
But when the pressurization-switch
is set to MANUAL,
both the Captain and the Co-pilot
are responsible
for maintaining the cabin
atmosphere using the controller
'So, explain again how you tested the pressure'
I went into the cockpit,
I turned the pressurization-switch to MANUAL,
Tsolakis learns that during
the early morning maintenance-check on Helios 522
ground engineers have turned the P5 switch
to MANUAL
That allowed them to use the on-board generators
to test the pressure-seals on the rear-door
without starting the engines
When the test was over,
they didn't turn the switch back to AUTOMATIC
The procedure of pressurizing the aircraft
has to do with setting the
system from AUTO to MANUAL
It was supposed to return the selector
to the AUTO position
Several hours later,
when the flight crew entered the cockpit,
the pressurization-switch was still set to MANUAL
But neither the pilot nor co-pilot saw it
As a result,
after take-off the cabin would
not pressurize automatically
The higher Flight 522 climbed,
the thinner the atmosphere became
Not turning the switch back to AUTO,
was a deadly hidden danger.
Are you sure this is the way it was found?
It hasn't been moved at all?
Tsolakis believes
this panel could be the key to the disaster
Leaving one switch on MANUAL,
could have led to all the other problems
the plane faced
To prove he is right,
he takes an unusual,
potentially dangerous step
Four months after the crash of Helios Flight 522
the search for answers into the disaster
takes a highly unorthodox turn
Chief investigator Akrivos Tsolakis
takes an Olympic Airline 737 on the same route,
flown by the Helios jet.
If he is right about what caused the crash
this plane should react exactly
like the doomed airliner did.
'Are we ready to go?'
When there is a complicated accident like this,
I think the re-enactment should be performed
Of course it is expensive to have a jet liner
flying for 3 or 4 hours.
Make sure that P5 is set to MANUAL
Ah, it is hard to see
In the cockpit,
Tsolakis has the crew turned
the pressurization switch to MANUAL.
A green light indicates it is no longer on AUTO
but in the bright glare
of an early morning departure,
the light is hard to see
As the re-enactment flight climbs
oxygen is thinning quickly in the aircraft
The same thing happened on the Helios flight
triggering an alarm.
'That is it!'
'Take off config warning'
The alarm sounded
and that alarm was miss-interpret
Most of flight crew, they will never face an alarm
with no pressurization
in all their flight-carrier,
because it is a rare event
Tsolakis confirms that the alarm was triggered
because of the dangerously low
air-pressure in the aircraft
But he also discovers that the sound itself,
is identical to the take-off config warning
But even if the flight crew
did misinterpret the first alarm
they still had another chance
to determine what the real problem was
At almost 5000 meters,
the plane's MASTER CAUTION light flashed on
and stayed on for almost a minute
But once again
the pilots misinterpret
the cause of the alarm
The MASTER CAUTION light can indicate
that the plane's systems are overheating
But it can also tell pilots
the oxygen-masks are down
In this case,
it was doing both at the same time.
But since the crew didn't think
they were having pressurization problems
they focused on the plane's cooling systems.
The sensors
that were suppose to measure the temperature
and the pressure in that area
sensed that something was wrong.
On the recreation flight,
investigators monitor instruments
recording the same events
occurring on-board their aircraft
At the same time,
they also begin to feel the effects
of the lack of oxygen
The first feelings you start to have
your ears would pop
and start feeling pressure in you sinuses
As you climb higher you begin to feel almost giddy
It is almost like having a couple
of drinks of alcohol
The doodling oxygen-levels
could also help explain
some of the crew's
bizarre behaviour
When the ground-engineer asked
about pressurization
Captain Merten ignores the question
and responses with one of his own
'Where are my equipment cooling circuit-breakers?'
You really don't notice it at first,
It is amazing how subtle it can be
in the early phases.
It starts feeling dizzy,
They begin to lose the ability to think coherently
In a way, it traps you into the situation
You cannot react anything
Eventually, you are going to lose consciousness
Tsolakis believes
that the captain may have been checking
on the circuit-breakers behind his seat
when he and the copilot finally ran out of air.
and unlike in the cabin,
the oxygen-masks in the cockpit
do not automatically deploy
if the atmosphere begins to thin.
On the other side of the locked cockpit-door,
no-one in the cabin would have known
that the plane was now flying itself
Nor that they have realized that
the limitation of the passenger-oxygen-system
had sealed the fate of everyone in the cabin
The passenger-masks are supplied
by a chemical generator
above their seats
But the generators only produce enough oxygen
to last about 12 minutes
What they are designed to do
is to give you enough oxygen
so that you can survive
until the pilots get the airplane down
to a lower altitude
In almost every event where we had a decompression
that is been perfectly adequate
For those who did put their masks on,
they would have remained conscious
for several minutes
until their oxygen ran out.
Then, they too would have passed out
Once,you get up to 34000 ft
your talk and your useful consciousness
last 30 to 60 seconds
The hypoxia begins to cause losing consciousness
they just go to sleep
Without a flight crew,
Helios 522 would have continued
to Athens on autopilot
When the crew didn't take control,
the autopilot would have then put
the jet in a holding pattern
as it flew over the airport.
To avoid the same happening
on the reconstruction-flight,
Tsolakis restores pressure to the plane.
The reconstruction also answers another question
about the tragic flight
The cockpit Voice Recorder picked up
several strange noises
They are heard,
just before Prodromou enters the cockpit
Tsolakis confirms
that these sounds were made by Prodromou
using the electronic keypad to unlock the door
We confirm all those items
during the re-enactment-flight
and it was very useful
It filled a lot of gaps we had.
"Okay, take it down'
For chief-investigator Tsolakis,
the re-enactment flight has been convincing
There was no dramatic cabin-failure
instead, a series of small
mistakes and miss-understandings
had led to the worst
air disaster in Greek history
15 Months after the crash,
Greek authorities release the official report
on Helios Airways Flight 522
But mysteries remain
What was happening in the cabin
while the doomed airplane flew toward Athens?
And why was Andreas Prodromou the only one,
conscious at the very end?
The crash of Helios Flight 522 was the worst
disaster in the history of Greek aviation
Like many crashes,
it was a fatal combination of mechanical problems
and human error.
The final accident report details
a tragic series of oversights
and false assumptions, made by the flight crew.
Problems that could have been easily prevented,
turned deadly for a 121 people on board.
'Behind the captain's seat, can you see them?'
But what the final report does not do,
is explain what happened in the cabin of the plane
What actions did the flight attendants take?
and why was Andreas Prodromou still conscious
after almost 3 hours?
Interviews with Helios safety-instructors
and crew-members
paint a tragic picture of what may have occurred.
Everyone, please put your mask on,
I am not sure what the trouble is
Remain calm and please remain seated
Prodromou was sitting at the back of the cabin
When the oxygen-masks fell
he would have waited for instructions
from the cockpit
The flight attendant sitting at the front
of the plane would have done the same
But none of them would have waited forever.
We made it an issue at Helios to emphasize
that cabin crew should not entirely
depend on their procedures
but to think on their feet
and to adapt to any impending situation
In most de-pressurization,
the plane descends quickly
but as minutes passed on the Helios flight
the plane continued to climb
Unsure of what was going on,
Prodromou would have tried
to contact the flight crew
Captain Merten
But he gets no response
Can you give us an update, please
Captain Merten
With no word from the cockpit,
he would have soon realized
that this was not a typical de-pressurization.
When there was no call-out from the cockpit,
and the aircraft didn't start
an emergency-descend,
there was absolutely no protocol
They would be winging it
By now, Prodromou must have felt
that something was terribly wrong.
But to find out what the problem was,
he had to leave his seat
The oxygen available on the 737
is of course the drop-out oxygen
10% of those masks are available for the crew
in case of a de-pressurization incident
There were extra masks for every seat-row
Taking advantage of the extra passenger-masks,
he could have made his way
to the front of the plane
A process cabin crew call 'Monkey-swinging'
But if more than 12 minutes have passed,
his girlfriend and the other flight attendant
may have still been in their seats.
and like the passengers overcome by hypoxia
But Prodromou was a scuba-diver
and a former soldier
in the Cypriots special forces.
His training may have helped him
to stay alert a little longer
Andreas was not a coward
He was a brave person, fearless
Brave and very confident
But to survive
after the passenger oxygen system stopped working
he needed another solution
The 737 had 4 portable oxygen bottles
Using them would given him some freedom.
And while the F16 pilots saw Prodromou
in the cockpit just before the crash,
it may not have been the first time
he had gone in.
As he did at the of the flight,
he could have used the security-code
to unlock the door earlier
The procedure would be to enter the flight deck
via the cockpit door
Initially to bang on the door,
and then if no response is forthcoming
to enter the code
and enter the flight deck
during the accident-investigation,
DNA was discovered on an oxygen mask
in the cockpit that matched the copilots
It is possible Prodromou used it
to try and revive him
You can still revitalize somebody
for quite an extended period of time
if he get to him before major brain-damages set in
and that is somewhat variable situation,
depending on the person...
depending on how long they are exposed
to high altitude
But if he was in the cockpit earlier,
why did he leave?
No one will ever know.
Probably he was a little bit disoriented
a little bit confused
He is reacting a lot slower than he normally would
What was his state of mind?
What was his physical condition?
We think that he knew what was really the problem
but is that the real situation?
It is a real question
After 3 hours in the air,
everyone who didn't have bottled oxygen
would have been unconscious
As it approached Athens,
Flight 522 was now a ghost plane.
Most of the victims,
they probably still had heartbeats
when the airplane crashed
but were almost certain in an irreversible coma
Hypoxia is no more painful than falling asleep
but for Andreas Prodromou
the flight must have been a nightmare
As the F16's roar to meet the jet
and with his oxygen running out,
he must have known that he too
was almost out of time
Yet to the very end, he didn't give up
Prodromou made one last attempt to save the plane
When he returns to the cockpit,
the young flight attendant who dreamed
of becoming a pilot
calls for help
But no one can hear him
likely because the radio was still tuned
to Larnaca,
the airport on Cyprus
from where the flight had taken off.
Fighting hypoxia,
and struggling to control an airplane
larger than any he had ever flown
Prodromou was in an impossible situation.
Even if he could have landed the plane,
it was now too late
Flight 522 was out of time.
and fuel
There are pictures of Andreas in Cyprus
in the cemetery where he and his
girlfriend Harris are burred, side by side
As his father, my son is in front of me.
There I go, he is always there
He left a very big gap
we will never get over it.
There are pictures in Greece, too
On the hill,
North of Athens where Helios 522 crashed,
there are faded photographs
of many of those who died.
Bleached by the brilliant Mediterranean sun
they gaze over the rugged, ancient terrain
Silent witnesses to one of the worlds most bizarre
and tragic airline disasters
Narrator:
Stephen Bogaert
Subtitles:
Rein Croonen