A series of human errors on the ground and in the air caused Cyprus's worst airline disaster, when a passenger jet crashed near Athens last year killing all 121 people on board, a Greek inquiry said this evening.
The report blamed Cyprus's worst airline disaster - the crash in August 2005 of the Cypriot Helios Airways Boeing 737-300 - on deficient technical checks on the ground, the pilots' failure to pick up on compression warnings and a series of other errors.
The compression system regulates the oxygen supply, which decreased as the aircraft gained altitude and rendered the pilots and passengers unconscious.
But the report also blamed Helios' bad quality management and safety culture as well as Cyprus' regulatory authority for the "inadequate execution of its safety oversight responsibilities".
Helios declined to comment until seeing the contents of the report." Victims' relatives in Cyprus said those responsible should be brought to justice.
"I hope that it helps (gain closure)," said Nicolas Yiasoumis, who lost his brother, sister-in-law and nine-year-old niece in the crash.
"We want to know the exact reasons for the disaster, and for those who are responsible to be brought to justice," he told Reuters in Cyprus.
The crash was highly unusual because the plane on a Larnaca-Prague flight flew on autopilot for two hours, its pilots slumped over the controls, before running out of fuel and ramming into a Greek hillside.
Two Greek air force fighters were scrambled when the plane lost radio contact, and their pilots saw a flight attendant, the only person still conscious on the plane, grappling with the controls before the aircraft crashed east of the capital.
"The report was submitted just now to the Greek Ministry of Transport and will also be delivered to the Cypriot side today," chief investigator Akrivos Tsolakis said.
His report also blames Boeing for failing to respond to previous such incidents on other 737-300s.
It lists as an indirect cause for the crash the "ineffectiveness of measures taken by the manufacturer in response to previous pressurisation incidents in that particular type of aircraft".
Boeing said it co-operated with the investigation and had provided comments to the draft version.