Helios accused plead not guilty
By Elias Hazou
(archive article - Friday, September 18, 2009)
THE HELIOS trial yesterday adjourned to late November after the five defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges of manslaughter and of causing the death of 119 people through a reckless act.
The defendants are: Andreas Drakos, chairman of the board of Helios; Demetris Pantazis, chief executive officer; Ianko Stoimenov, (former) chief pilot; Giorgos Kikidis, operations manager; and Helios Airways as a legal entity.
Each faces a total of 238 counts, consisting of the 119 victims aboard the ill-fated plane (minus the two pilots) times the two charges.
The trial resumes November 27 at the Nicosia criminal court. The new date is the result of a deal struck between the defence and the prosecution in court yesterday.
Drakos, Pantazis, Stoimenov and Kikidis remain free on bail.
The defendants stood poker-faced in the courtroom as the charges were read out, making no eye contact with Helios relatives seated inside.
The case of the prosecution (the Attorney-general’s office) hinges on demonstrating that the company and its officers are liable for employing, and continuing to employ “inadequate and unfit” pilots, as state prosecutor Eleana Zachariades said in court yesterday.
But legal circles are already voicing doubt over the prosecution’s approach, which they see as flimsy at best. Under Cyprus law, manslaughter is defined as “causing death through an illegal act” – begging the question of what an illegal act in this case would constitute. Could operating or flying an aircraft be considered an illegal act, for example?
In short, the Attorney-general’s office’s angle is that the accident was caused by mistakes/omissions made by Captain Hans-Jurgen Merten and his co-pilot Pambos Charalambous, that they were unfit to fly, and that therefore it is the airline’s fault for allowing them to do so.
There is also the matter that the two pilots were fully licensed.
Among relatives of the Helios victims resentment over delays in starting the trial (it has been four years since the accident) has now been mixed with criticism of the prosecution’s handling of the case. Many are not at all happy with how things are going.
A trial is also set to get underway in Greece (the location of the accident), with reports recently of possible legal barriers and jurisdiction complications in the case of an individual being set to appear before trial in two different countries for the same case.
The Greek indictment also features Pandazis, Kikidis and Stoimenov, as well as chief mechanic Allan Irwin, who has not been charged in Cyprus.
It is said the trial in Cyprus could be threatened should Greece not co-operate in handing over evidence germane to the case. Latest reports, however, say a deal has been struck between the two countries.
“Justice? What justice? They’re going to lay all the blame on the pilots…it’s so obvious,” said Elena Georgiou, who lost her brother, his fiancée Christiana and six other friends on the doomed flight.
And she wondered why it took the Attorney-general’s office “four whole years to ask for the evidence in Greece, when they knew all along that this would come up.”
On the morning of August 14, 2005, a Boeing 737-300 jet operated by Helios Airways out of Larnaca smashed into hilly terrain 40km outside Athens after running out of fuel. All 121 people on board were killed, making this the worst aviation disaster in Cypriot history.
A subsequent fact-finding probe on the accident primarily blamed the two pilots, but also cited shortcomings within the airline as well as Cyprus’ Civil Aviation as latent, or underlying, reasons for the crash.
The crash report found that the airflow valve was set at a 14-degree angle from the manual position, allowing for partial pressurisation. For this type of Boeing, it should have been set on auto before takeoff.
According to the report, on the night before the accident, airline engineers left the switch on manual, but on the fateful day the pilots apparently omitted to conduct the pre-flight checks.
Cyprus Mail Internet Edition