Cyprus airline disputes Greek crash report

NICOSIA, Oct 11 (Reuters) A Cypriot airline today challenged a Greek investigator's report blaming the carrier for safety lapses in Cyprus's worst air disaster in which 121 people died last year.

The report, released yesterday, blamed the August 14 2005 Helios Airways crash on deficient technical checks, the pilots' failure to pick up on compression warnings and other errors. It also cited shortcomings in the organisation, quality management and safety culture at Helios, an independent Cypriot carrier.

''The report ... is disputed by the company's experts in that it discloses no plausible and adequate explanation how our alleged deficiencies could be linked to the accident, even as part of the 'latent causes','' AJet, the successor carrier to Helios, said in a press release.

In one of the most mysterious air disasters in aviation history, the Boeing 737-300 flew on autopilot for more than two hours after taking off from Larnaca in Cyprus for Prague.

It slammed into a Greek mountainside when it ran out of fuel as a flight attendant with rudimentary pilot's training, the only person apparently conscious on the aircraft, grappled with the controls.

Greek F-16 pilots who scrambled to intercept the aircraft after it failed to respond to radio calls saw the attendant in the cockpit and oxygen masks dangling in the cabin.

AJet challenged an assertion in the investigators' report that a compression valve left in manual, instead of automatic during a non-scheduled maintenance on the ground in Larnaca could have contributed to the accident.

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

Ajet said the report failed to include its own experts' comments.

Tests carried out by British experts and an engineer have challenged Greek investigators' suggestion the aircraft took off with the pressurisation switch in manual, it said.

Representations would be made to the Greek Minister of Transport because investigators did not to append its own comments to the report made public yesterday, the company said.

The report also blamed Cyprus's regulatory authority for its ''inadequate execution of its safety oversight responsibilities.'' and Boeing for failing to respond to previous pressurisation incidents.

Boeing said it cooperated with the investigation and would take whatever action necessary to maintain flight safety.

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