ATHENS has launched two investigations into the helicopter crash on Saturday that killed 17 people including Cypriot-born Greek Orthodox Patriarch Petros of Alexandria and All Africa, his brother George Papapetrou and Prior Arsenios of Macheras.
As Greece declared three days of mourning yesterday, the remains of Prior Arsenis arrived in Cyprus the day of Papapetrou’s funeral in Nicosia. The Abbott’s funeral will take place in Larnaca today.
Patriarch Petros’ body was recovered from the sea on Sunday morning, 24 hours after the Chinook helicopter plunged into the waters 30km off the monastic site of Mount Athos in north Greece. It was to have been his first official visit to the monastery.
The Metropolitans Chrysostomos of Carthage and Irinaios of Pilousio, the bishop of Madagascar Nectarios and three other clerics including the Patriarch’s chief secretary also died.
The other dead were: a press spokesman, police escort, two consultants and five crew.
The Patriarch’s body was laid out for a public wake in a small lily-filled chapel next to the Athens Cathedral yesterday. A steady stream of young and old visitors paid their respects, kissing the casket draped in the Greek flag, reports from Athens said.
The Patriarch will be buried in Alexandria later this week. Tributes poured in from around the world for the Cypriot-born cleric, who was active in missionary and charity work throughout Africa. “I was deeply saddened to learn of the tragic death of His Beatitude Petros VII,” Pope John Paul said in a message to the Holy Synod of the Greek Patriarchate.
“The tragic death of Patriarch Petros is a source of great sorrow and grief for the Orthodox sister churches of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, for the Bishop of Rome and in the Catholic Church and for all those who esteemed the late patriarch’s ministry to the church in Africa and his commitment to Christian unity.”
The search is continuing to find the bodies of eight of the passengers, mainly senior Greek Orthodox clerics, and to recover the wreckage of the helicopter, which was reported to have had problems in the past.
Greece’s Alpha news reported that a year ago a crack was discovered on one of the helicopter’s blades, which had been rectified by the American manufacturers. The fault was prevalent in more than one Chinook but all owners of the helicopters had been informed. It will not be known until the wreckage is found and examined, whether it was the same fault that caused the accident.
Greek government spokesman Thodoris Rousopoulos said yesterday that two committees would be set up by the Defence Ministry to investigate the circumstances of the accident, and to establish why there had been a three-hour delay in launching a rescue operation and informing the Greek leadership. The Chinook disappeared from radars at around 10.30am but a search was not launched until around 1pm.
On Sunday Greece’s Defence Minister Spilios Spiliotopoulos sacked the country’s air force chief over the delay and tendered his own resignation as a matter of honour, but this was refused. A new Air Force chief was appointed yesterday.
“There are people who need to answer to the delays in communicating the loss of the helicopter, and responsibility lies with mechanisms within the armed forces” Greece’s Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said in a news conference on Sunday.
