A Helios Airways jet with 121 people on board crashed yesterday in a mountainous region north of Athens, defense and fire officials said. Greek fire chief Christos Smetis said there were no survivors.
It was not immediately clear why the plane crashed, but reports said the pilots may have been unconscious when the plane went down.
Firefighters searching for survivors amid the burning wreckage of a Cyprus Helios Airways jet that crashed near Athens Sunday have found "the first dead but still no survivors," a fire department spokesman told reporters.
PHOTO: AP
Officials said the plane crashed at about 12:20pm near the coastal town of Grammatikos north of Athens after losing contact with air traffic control.
Eyewitnesses told an Athens radio station the plane was being followed by air force fighter jets when it went down in a gorge about 40km north of Athens.
"There is wreckage everywhere," Grammatikos Mayor George Papageorgiou said from the scene, saying that only the tail section was recognizable. "The fuselage has been destroyed. It fell into a chasm and there are pieces. All the residents are here trying to help."
The flight, with 115 passengers and six crew members on board, was headed from the Cypriot city of Larnaca to Athens International Airport. According to one report, 80 of the passengers were Greek children returning from a trip to Cyprus. After losing touch with the Athens control tower, the Greek air force scrambled two F-16 fighter jets, reports said.
"The plane crashed around 400m from homes in the area," said Miltiadis Merkouris, a Grammatikos city official.
The air force pilots reported no movement in the cockpit of the plane, and it was unclear if the two pilots were unconscious or not in the seats, reports said. The plane did not respond to radio calls, according to reports.
A passenger on the airliner said in a mobile text message to his cousin before the crash that the pilots were slumped and that it was freezing in the plane.
"The pilot has turned blue [in the face]," the passenger said in the SMS message to his cousin, Greek television reported. "Cousin farewell we're freezing," it said.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
RSS