Cyprus airline crash probe blames human error-media

NICOSIA, Oct 6 (Reuters) Human error was the main cause of Cyprus's worst airline disaster, in which an aircraft crashed into a hillside north of Athens last year killing all 121 people on board, a Cypriot newspaper reported today.

Errors by ground and aircrew were among eight factors logged by Greek investigators who are expected to hand the result of their official probe into the disaster to Greek and Cypriot authorities next week, the daily Phileleftheros said.

Cypriot authorities declined to comment on the report.

The crash was highly unusual because the Boeing 737-300, operated by Helios Airways on a Larnaca-Prague flight, flew on autopilot for two hours, its pilots slumped over the controls, before ramming into a Greek hillside when it ran out of fuel.

Two Greek air force fighters were scrambled when the plane lost radio contact, and their pilots saw a flight attendant, apparently the only person still conscious on the plane, grappling with the controls before the aircraft crashed.

A failure to switch the aircraft's decompression system to automatic from manual mode, by both technicians on the ground and the pilots themselves, triggered the sequence of events, Phileleftheros reported.

The system regulates the oxygen supply, which therefore decreased as the aircraft gained altitude and rendered the pilots and passengers unconscious.

The August. 14, 2005, crash was the worst aviation disaster in Europe in 2005 and the worst on record for Greece or Cyprus.

Communications Minister Haris Thrassou declined to comment on the report, saying the official findings of the investigation had not yet been given to the authorities. ''I expect this should happen in the coming week,'' he told Reuters.

REUTERS SHB PM1751