Alan aquitted in Cyprus
 

Bigfrank Remember Alan Irwin prosecuted in a Greek court had already been aquitted in Cyprus as it was concluded that the same action and/or omission did NOT contribute to the accident is this not a case of double jeopardy?

Cyprus Court
 

Not exactly TOON, after a full and proper investigation by the Cypriot Police, the Prosecutor decided that there was no case against Alan so he was not brought to court.

The problem now is that because he wasn't even tried, he wasn't aquitted by another Court so still has to face the full might of the Greek legal system.

This is why he needs the full and determined backing from all in the sane side of aviation.

Likewise. This just bonkers.

As an aside, I don't really buy the 'lots of holes lined up' idea on this accident. In my experience the 737-300 pressurisation can be glitchy anyway, especially if you are MELing single pack. In other words I've had several occurances of failure to pressurise. Regardless of switch positions the crew did not check and then got confused by the warnings. The first is flight crew error and the second is poor training. Either way the flight ops management / training department have to shoulder some blame.

Alan Irwin is NOT at fault. The judgement is an outrage and a direct threat to every aviation professional. There are .. what? over 350,000 members of this site. How about we DO something about it?

The Article - worth repeating here
 

Aviation Safety Suffers Further Setback Following Helios Conviction

HOOFDDORP, The Netherlands, April 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --
A Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineer has received a 10 year prison sentence by an Athens court for allegedly not resetting a cockpit switch following maintenance on the Helios Airways Boeing 737 ‐300 which crashed into a mountain near Athens in 2005 after its oxygen supply failed and the pilots and most of the passengers fell unconscious.
It is difficult to grasp how aviation safety can be improved if the legal process surrounding an aircraft accident allows an engineer to be condemned to a prison sentence based on an "assumption" that a cockpit Switch (critical to flight safety) was set in the incorrect position. There was absolutely no evidence presented during the trial that the Engineers actions caused or even contributed to the accident. On the contrary, the conviction is based purely on the unproven supposition that the switch was left in the incorrect position although it was demonstrated by experts that that was unlikely. In fact some accident investigators maintain that the switch was still in AUTO (correct position) at impact. The factual evidence in the Helios case paints a rather different picture of the engineer than that suggested by this decision. The facts suggest an extremely conscientious and professional engineer performing the job at hand in an extremely professional manner.
Perhaps most importantly, the decision makes the ground engineer criminally responsible for the configuration of the controls of the aircraft, prior to the flight crew joining and carrying out their pre‐flight and post take off checks. Such a proposition runs completely counter to the core proposition of division of responsibilities that every engineer and every pilot will recognise but which sadly various engineers and pilots called as witnesses on behalf of the prosecution felt able to deny.
Once again we are witnessing a judicial process that offered an opportunity to improve aviation safety failing to meet that challenge preferring instead to allocate blame on an uninformed and irrational basis and with a mindset that someone must pay because an accident sadly causing deaths has occurred and society demands a scapegoat. The current trend of criminalising aircraft accidents serves no other purpose other than to undermine safety and will ultimately lead to more accidents. Despite all the rhetoric about aviation safety being paramount, the introduction of safety and quality management systems, the simple fact remains that due to a failure on the part of Europe to create a centre of investigatory excellence for the industry and to eliminate the inappropriate use of accident reports for criminal purposes; instead pandering to the blame culture, safety systems will fail to deliver what air travellers want - Safety in the skies.

If we got 10% of the pprune members to print off a well written letter, and put it in an envelope, and post it via snail mail, I think 35,000 old school letters swamping one post office box would at least get some media attention.If we got 50% of pprune members (or sent a few letters each) it would be a really strong message.
Who would be the best political recipient for such a letter?
I think something tangable like a real letter would be much more effective than an online petition.
Your thoughts?

Sorry to say this but it's Greece we're dealing with. They'd just take your letters and toss them on the fires that are lit during the daily protests in downtown Athens.

I understand that the basic failure in this incident is the failure of the crew to carry out cockpit checks correctly and I can almost understand the pilots' mistaking the alarm horn and once having done so being of such a fixed mindset they did no further search for the correct cause. I can even understand that the pilots failed to notice a warning for the masks dropping in the cabin but I would have thought that, out of sheer self preservation, that when the aircraft continued to climb the CC would have called the cabin to draw attention to the masks. Surely you can't be CC for any length of time without getting to understand the effects of hypoxia and that time is limited?

As for the Greek courts, I have almost given up trying to understand the way other cultures work. Even within our own country assuming that other people think logically or even that the justice system is logical is to bet against the odds.

I was always taught that the prime purpose of the pilots' pre-flight check was to ensure that everything was configured correctly for a safe flight. Therefore, regardless of what had been done before, it is the pilot's responsibilty.

To hold the engineer responsible is totally against common sense, even if he had left the switch in the wrong position. I don't know anything about Greek justice but someone must intervene to prevent him being found guilty.

As others have said, the criminalisation of accident investigation flies in the face of fllght safety.

Criminalisation
 

This event has highlighted the problem of using accident reports in criminal cases, especially when they are used as the only source of evidence as in the Greek Court.

When a 'proper' police based criminal investigation was done in Cyprus, all the defendants were aquitted.

Contributers to this thread have talked a lot about preflight checks etc but the bottom line is that:

THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT THE AIRCRAFT TOOK OFF WITH THE PMS AT MAN

The assumption that it did was based entirely on an erroneous assumption that, as the PMS was found past the MAN mark after impact it must have been there since the engineer used it to do his check.

The PMS suffered very severe damage in the impact and it is only a "cooker switch".

Subsequent examination by world class investigators demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that it was in fact at AUTO prior to being moved by the impact sequence.

The Greek Court did not accept this evidence by non-Greek aviation professionals.

Can I suggest that you send your letters/emails of protest about this miscarriage of justice to your national Accident Investigation Authority, demanding that the investigation be reopened for air safety reasons under Annex 13, 5.13 to establish the true cause of this accident.

After reading the official accident investigation from the Greek AAIASB, I note on page 62 that all 3 bleed switches were left in the OFF position. Surely this would make the pressurisation selector position irrelevant? Why has this not been noted in the report or the court cases? I find it scandelous that the engineer is facing a 10 year sentance for simply doing his job. I agree with earlier posts both on this site, and other (engineer) sites to write to parlaiment and The House of Lords to persuade the government to dissuade the Greeks from using a UK citizen as a scapegoat for this accident. Good luck Alan, I hope it works out for you.

Flight International
 

Have you seen this weeks Flight - good leader on the Athens farce

The underlying message is don't talk to accident investigators without your lawyer present or better still don't talk to them full stop until someone sorts this out.

ISASI has been very quiet about this verdict so presumably they don't have a problem with it :=

You are Correct Philk123
 

All 3 bleed air switches were OFF and had not been moved by the impact - expanding on this would have spoilt the tidy little scenario.

It has since come to light that the pilots had selected both audio switches to MASK implying that they probably did don their masks at some stage - going to MASK is something pilots often forget to do.

Oh yes, and it has now been shown beyond reasonable doubt that the PMS was in AUTO at impact anyway.

The Court was told all of this but it evidently didn't fit the guilty verdict neatly enough.

It may be of interest to you that the Greek investigators never bothered to access the pre-impact status of any of these switches.

- I either was not aware or had missed this. Why, if they had masks on, did they not retain consciousness long enough to sort it out?

They never found the pilots masks which is strange as they found both supernummary masks intact.

The Report doesn't comment on the audio switches; the Boeing man on the NTSB team noticed that they were both at MASK but that line was not pursued.

- obviously irrelevant to a Country out for Alan's scalp.........:ugh:

Do you have a link to this ('Boeing man') observation?

Best I can do
 

Audio Control Panels: Both captain's and first officers audio control panels were contained within the pedestal control panel. Each panel has a toggle switch that can be positioned to either "mask" or "Boom". Both the captain's and first officer's audio control panels were observed to be positioned to "MASK".

It is a while since I flew the Classic, and as you say 'toggle' (as I recall it too) it must be less likely that both would have been moved by impact, I would think, so it must be significant, especially since I think the movement required was forwards to the 'MASK' position..

The flightcrew didnt switch it back to AUTO for sure.Nor did they ever press horn cutout or operate the boom/mask switch or don masks.

What the FA who was also qualified as a pilot did with these switches 2 hours later is entirely a different matter.But the passengers were already dead by then werent they?

The engineer was not responsible I agree.

This was not a CRM accident.I dont agree the accident was the result of some company/culture malaise.It was a training/mindset issue and a wake up call to all aircrew of just how lethal and insidious hypoxia really is.Civilian aircrew dont even train it.If people are teaching it as a CRM crash,I disagree....both pilots were confused by the horn and suffered the same mindset.Crew coordination is immaterial to this one(except FA's-they saw the masks but couldnt or chose not to get into the cockpit??)

scapegoats
 

Hi everybody,
Just to put some clarification, as the thread is drifting more towards protecting Irwin.
The other 3 defendants should not be prosecuted as well. The dangerous precedent that this farce is setting - to blame the management team for an yet unproven pilot error will give even more free hand to authorities and individuals to use airline employees as scapegoats.
If we do not unify and make sure the Greek government and the EU commission hear our voices a new dark age will fall upon the airline industry - nobody will be willing to share any info that might be used against him. And eventually SAFETY WILL PLUMMET!
:mad:

Write to your MP.
 

Wrote to my MP about this the other day.

Got the following response.

"Thankyou for your email which I am carefully considering and will write further."

I have no idea if this is a genuine response or just a standard reply sent to all who bother to write to their MP.

Either way, if more and more people contact their representative maybe someone high enough up will listen.

Watch this space.

Very nice that you wrote to your MP, he can do nothing anyway.
The only ones that can do something are the lawyers, nobody else. Let us hope that the Greek D.A. did not yet sent out an european arrest warrant!

Letters/emails
 

Why don't you route your indignation by letter/email to UK AAIB or your own investigating authority, as they will be the ones whose questions you will now have to think twice about answering.

Be too helpful and they may bang you up to rights as well :ooh:

When it becomes a political issue, the truth is irrelevant.

There are families that want someone to pay for this and blaming it on dead pilots isn't going to cut it for them.

Theres an election next week too.

Greek Judiciary workings
 

Just a nasty little detail from the hearings in Athens.
The Prosecution there has used most of the Greek aviation specialists who participated in the investigation and the writing of the report, as prosecution witnesses. This is a straightforward contravention of the Chicago Convention and EU regulation 996/2010 that state that accident investigation reports should only be used to improve safety – not for criminal prosecution.

Criminal damage - Flight International Editor's Blog

Fair point, but my hope is that if enough MPs get mithered by enough of us the AAIB's opinion will be sought and this whole mess put to bed.


SHE!!!!

Experience has taught me not to argue with a woman. ;)

Greek Legal System
 

Can I just speak up for the excellent Greek legal system, in case, as CEO, you ever have to face it because one of your engineers left the Captain's seat too far back after he had arranged the flight deck switches for the Captain, in a pleasing and eye catching manner and left the aircraft.

To alleviate the stress of waiting for a verdict, the Greek lawyers told all the defendants at the start of the trial that they would be found guilty regardless of the evidence because that's the way it works in their legal system:ugh:

Next action No,10 & AAIB.
 

could be any one of us waiting to spend the next 10 years in a Greek jail, a PILOT, a MANAGER, an ENGINEER, a CEO or any support group.

In Greece no formal criminal investigation was carried out, the main evidence is the Greek Annex 13 accident report; the main witnesses were the accident investigators.

Irwin’s formal response to the draft Final Report that showed the findings were incorrect was not considered by the Greeks because, as they state “the UK AAIB submitted them incorrectly”. This critical evidence was ignored and the UK AAIB did nothing about it.

The information I have is there are lots of facts that have not been made public yet, but they prove the switch was left in AUTO as Irwin has stated to the Cyprus police from day one and it remained there till impact.

There have been switches that where left unexplained e.g. both engine bleed switches off, both audio switches in MASK. Why were the flight crew oxy masks never found whereas the supernummary masks were found and tested?

The accident report states the cabin on the re-enactment flight pressurised to 1 psi before flight and the cabin and aircraft climbed as expected at the same rate maintaining 1 PSI pressure diff with the switch in MAN and the outflow valve at 15 degrees. Yet the accident report also states the cabin rate of climb on the accident flight recorded on the pressure controller NVM was significantly less than that of the aircraft. It clearly demonstrates the cabin and the aircraft climbed at a different rate to the re-enactment flight. The switch could not be in manual and the OFV at 15 %.

If as the report states the switch was in MAN and the aircraft pressurised to I PSI on the accident flight, how did Irwin depressurise the aircraft after the maintenance. If this was the last place the switch was left the cabin would not have gone below 1 PSI after maintenance and the engineers could not open the door to leave the aircraft.

If the crew departed with the switch in MAN the aircraft would have started to rapidly pressurise to the 1 PSI when the last door or window was closed, then at engine start the air conditioning is switched off and the cabin pressure would plummet to 0 PSI, post engine start the air cond is selected back on and the pressure rapidly rises again. The pressure changes are in the region of 2000 fpm to 4000 fpm. Is there one of us that think we could miss it. Get an aircraft and try it, just be warned it’s alarming. It all points to a failure of the pressurisation system shortly after take-off. Yet with all this and more the accident investigation world will not listen, they look at their own demise as what mad man would assist in an investigation, a system we all believed in is leading its own destruction. Let’s all mail the government to start to listen, I am sending mine to David Cameron P.M. on www.number10.gov
Why not copy this to him and the UK AAIB on [email protected] and ask what they are doing. Remember all four of these Guys are sentenced to 123 years in a Greek prison on no real evidence. Don’t sit back; get everyone on your mailing list to send an e mail today.

TOON737. Very good facts presented there. As an engineer, I'm frightened for Irwin and I do hope that this is sorted properly once and for all.
I'm now writing to my MP.
Is there a petition running do we know?
Would it make any difference?

Seem to recall a Swissair DC 8 crew being sentenced to two years prison after running off the end of a damp runway covered with rubber deposits in Athens.

As always there were several conflicts in evidence - possible late touchdown but SR was of the opinion it was down to the airport authorities.

not quite the same. Back then there was probably an appeal then an extradition case etc. etc.. Were they ever delivered to a Greek prison?

It has been suggested to me that there is now a european arrest warrant and a conviction in a EU member state is treated no different from a conviction in your home state. You will be delivered to the prison of their choice without having the chance of Government intervention or buying more time due to an extradition process being launched.

If that is the case on top of everything else here then this becomes even more scary.

A prior case of injustice.
 

In 1968, a CAT B727 crashed on approach to Taipei. It appears it was following flase glideslope indications , probably as a result of miitary radio interference. Several other aircraft had reported problems with the ILS over the previous days, but the airport authorities did nothing to rectify the problem. Over fifty people died and the foreign pilots were charged with manslaughter. IFALPA stepped into their defence as there were a lot of irregularities, such as maintenace work done just after the crash on the ILS being recorded as happening before the accidnet. IFALPA mentioned that they would instigate a ban on their members operating ino Taiwan if the court case went ahead. The Taiwan governemnt realised that IFALPA had the power to isolate Taiwan from the air and dropped all charges.

The Island of Cyprus
 

The shining light in this travesty is the Cypriot legal system that has demonstrated how civilised European countries should behave.

Yes there was a extensive criminal investigation but it was done properly by the Cypriot police, not ICAO Annex 13 Air Safety Investigators.

Alan Irwin was interviewed at length and his actions were found not to have contributed to the accident so he was not indicted.

The airline management were indicted as was the company, but all were aquitted.

The Greek Report was admitted as evidence but any part of the content that was used had to be proven independently.

There is an appeal in Cyprus and if the verdict is upheld, it will over-ride any decision in Greece so the Helios management will be rightly aquitted there also.

The paradox now is that because Alan Irwin was not tried in Cyprus he was not aquitted and his conviction will still stand in Greece.

So in this crazy situation the one who was even "less guilty" than those aquitted will still face imprisonment in Greece.

Please keep up your presssure to overcome the inbuilt inertia of those who should be in a position to help.

So infact you only need 1 crazy judge and that is it really to set back Aviation Safety 30 years.
I presume the 4 would appeal the verdict, but seen the reputation of the Greek judicial systeem this may take many years and lots of $$$$$:\

Reopening the Helios Investigation
 

Just heard that new and significant evidence has been sent to the Greek Investigators by the State of Cyprus with a request to reopen the investigation.

Now we will see what the Greeks care most about -

Idependent Canadian ivestigation finding
 

The following is a quotation from the AIR's report.
Anybody willing to have the report, pls PM me and I will send it to you.
It is a further proof that the farce of a trial in Greece was concocted and executed with an only intention - to exercise pressure on the Supreme Court in Cyprus to overthrow the acquittal.

A.I.R.’s Independent Investigation of the Helios Boeing 737-300 – 5B-DBY Accident

Section 1 – Summary of AIR’s Main Findings

1.1 The Conclusions in the Hellenic Final Report are based upon, and are consistent with the apparent deductions in the Boeing Report and the Nord-Micro Report. All these Reports are based on an incorrect belief that the Pressurization Mode Selector had been inadvertently left in the MAN position throughout the flight. The conclusions in these Reports have been completely discredited by proving that the Pressurization Mode Selector was in the AUTO position detent at impact. The conclusions of the AAIASB in the accident report appear to be influenced by the insinuations in the Boeing and the Nord Micro Reports, neither of which actually purport to establish the pre-impact position of the Mode Selector Knob/Switch. However the accident report does not mention any further analysis carried out by AAIASB. The AAIASB accident report is based on the incorrect belief that the Pressurization Mode Selector had been left in the MAN position after maintenance action and throughout the flight. This conclusion by the
AAIASB has been completely discredited by proving that the Pressurization Mode Selector was in the AUTO position detent at impact, having been forcibly turned by impact forces through 100 degrees to the as-found position past the MAN detent at the accident scene.

1.2 The aircraft failed to pressurize properly even though the system was selected to the AUTO Mode for the entire accident flight. The analysis to date clearly shows that the failure of the aircraft to pressurize was caused by a malfunction (or malfunctions) in the pressurization control system; that is, the Nord-Micro Pressurization System Components failed during the accident flight.

AIR Report
 

These are top ISASI investigative engineers who did this report (google - AIR, Canada) and I believe it was given as evidence for the defence.

Along with evidence from other top people from UK, medical, flying, engineering, Flight Operations, Air Accident Investigation, this WAS DISCOUNTED BY THE JUDGE because it was not given by Greeks and did not agree with the Greek's idea of an Annex 13 investigation.

If you are managing, fixing or flying anything that goes into Greek Airspace be warned!

I hope Alan does not go back there for the trial.

If he UK based (or anywhere in the EU) the Greeks will probably issue a European Arrest Warrant and our government is bound (by EU legislation) to hand him over.

European Arrest Warrant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Don't think it doesn't get used, in 2009 700 people from the UK were extradited using the EAW. And yes, there's many, many cases where it has been used wrongly, incorrectly or for minor things.