GRAMMATIKO, Greece, 15 August 2005 — A Cypriot airliner carrying 121 people, including 48 children, plowed into a hill near the ancient city of Marathon yesterday, officials said, after at least one pilot apparently was knocked unconscious. Everyone on board was killed in the disaster, which initial signs show was caused by a technical problem — possibly decompression.

The only piece of Helios Airways flight ZU522 that remained intact was the tail section of the jet and debris was strewn in a chasm and surrounding hills. Bodies, clothing, and luggage were scattered around the wreckage, which triggered brush fires.

The flight was headed from Larnaca, Cyprus, to Athens International Airport when it crashed at about 12.05 p.m. (0905GMT) near this coastal town about 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Athens. The Boeing 737 was due to fly on to Prague, Czech Republic.

There were 48 children on board, Helios spokesman Giorgos Dimitriou told reporters at Athens airport, and “most of them were Greek Cypriots.” A Czech government official also confirmed that figure.

The pilots of two F-16 jet fighters that intercepted the plane over the Aegean Sea shortly before it crashed saw one of the airliner’s pilots slumped over the controls, Greece’s Alpha television channel quoted air force officials as saying. It was unclear where the other pilot was. The officials also reported that there was no movement in the cabin.

A spokesman for the air force said the plane was intercepted at 10,360 meters (34,000 feet) after it entered Greek airspace.

Sotiris Voutas, a cousin of one of the passengers on the plane, told Alpha that he received a text message from the cousin on his mobile phone minutes before the crash.

“He told me the pilots were unconscious ... he said: ‘Farewell, cousin, here we’re frozen’.”

Fire chief Christos Smetis said there were no survivors among the 115 passengers and six crew on board the plane. “The fire is still burning and there are no survivors.”

The cause of the crash was unclear, but the unusual circumstances immediately raised speculation of terrorism. Greek state television NET reported that the two black boxes from the Cypriot plane that crashed were located.

A spokesman for the Cyprus government said in Nicosia that there were no signs it was a terrorist attack.

“From what we’ve heard so far, it’s possible that there was some sort of problem with the plane,” Greek government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos said.

The coldness in the cabin suggested “the crew may have been suffering from lack of oxygen,” said David Kaminski Morrow, deputy news editor of the British-based Air Transport Intelligence magazine.

Oxygen masks should have automatically deployed and there should have been enough oxygen to allow the crew to bring the plane down to an altitude of about 3,050 meters (10,000 feet) where the air is breathable, he said. “The key questions are at what altitude was all this taking place,” Kaminski Morrow said. Greek state television quoted Cyprus Transport Minister Haris Thrasou as saying the plane had problems with decompression in the past. But Dimitriou said at Athens airport that the plane had “no problems and was serviced just last week.”

Sudden loss of cabin pressure was blamed on a similar crash that took place in the United States in October 1999. A private Learjet 35 lost pressure and left pro golfer Payne Stewart and four others unconscious. The twin-engine jet went down in a pasture after flying halfway across the country on autopilot.

A Helios official said the pilots may not have been flying the plane when it crashed. “It looks like the plane was on automatic pilot,” Helios spokesman Marios Konstantinidis said at Larnaca airport in Cyprus.

The victims’ relatives cried in anguish as they waited at Athens and Larnaca airports for news about the crash. In Larnaca, Artemis Charalambous said she was the mother of a pilot on the flight.

In Grammatiko, more than 100 firefighters, aided by eight special planes and three helicopters dropping water, fought a huge brush fire caused by the crash. Parts of the remains of the plane were engulfed by the flames.

The plane broke up into at least three pieces, including the tail, a bit of the cockpit and a piece of the fuselage section that eyewitnesses said contained a large group of bodies.

“There is wreckage everywhere. I am here, things here are very difficult, they are indescribable,” Grammatiko Mayor George Papageorgiou said. “I am looking at back tail. The fuselage has been destroyed. It fell into a chasm and there are pieces.”

The head of the Greek airline safety committee, Akrivos Tsolakis, described it as the “worst accident we’ve ever had.”

He speculated that there may have been a problem with the cabin pressure, but that a detailed analysis of the flight data recorder and cockpit conversation could help.

“There apparently was a lack of oxygen, which is usually the case when the cabin is de-pressurized,” Tsolakis said.

The two F-16 fighter jets were scrambled shortly after the plane entered Greek air space over the Aegean Sea and did not respond to radio calls. It is standard Greek Air Force procedure to intercept any aircraft entering the country’s airspace not responding to radio calls. Witnesses said they saw the plane being followed by the Greek Air Force jets when it crashed. Greek radio and television stations reported that the air force pilots saw no movement in the cockpit of the plane before the crash. There were some reports the two pilots seemed to be unconscious.

Cypriot expatriates in Riyadh expressed their shock and anguish over the aircrash. Describing the news as devastating, Alvin Righas, a Cypriot executive manager, said he had been monitoring the State Cypriot TV.

“It’s really bizarre,” Cindy Pattoura, a Greek Cypriot housewife told Arab News on phone. She said it was the first time such an accident had occurred, adding that the full picture would be available soon. Pattoura said the tragedy was all the more poignant since a third of the victims were children.

— With input from Javid Hassan