LIBRA Holidays Group (LHG), is considering legal action to recoup a £5 million loss the group sustained as a result of the Helios Airways crash last August in which 121 people were killed.
Helios is owned by LHG, one of the biggest UK-based tour operators, which bought the airline late last year. LHG is also listed on the Cyprus Stock Exchange (CSE).
In an announcement to the CSE yesterday, Libra said it was in touch with its London-based lawyers about the possibility of suing ‘third parties’ over the crash of the Helios Boeing 737-300.
The accident, which happened in Greece, cost Libra at least £5 million plus another £18 million the group wrote off in goodwill as a result of the crash.
In its announcement to the CSE, the group reported massive losses of £23.69 million for the financial year up to the end of October compared to a profit of £2.58 million in the same period in 2004.
Libra said turnover was up because of the acquisition of Helios, but following the crash it decided to proceed with a major write-off of goodwill in the books. But in relation to the £5 million Helios loss, it said it was contemplating suing third parties.
The company did not specify who the third parties were and is unlikely to do so until the final investigation into the crash is complete and has been published.
“When an accident happens, it is very seldom that there is only one cause for it,” said a source close to the investigation. “A number of factors are usually involved but not a lot of players. Any confirmation that is needed will come from the investigation.”
The investigation into the crash is due to be completed early next year. So far it appears the accident was caused by a number of different factors. This was confirmed by chief Greek investigator Akrivos Tsolakis during his recent visit to Cyprus.
The predominant theory is that cabin decompression led to hypoxia – or low oxygen in the blood – causing the crew to pass out.
Greek investigators have discovered there have been many other cases of a Boeing 737 climbing without pressurisation set, but the crews recognised the alerts and averted hypoxia and resultant disaster.
Tsolakis said he had received reports from numerous other national aviation authorities advising him of events similar to the Helios one, but with “non-fatal outcomes”.
It is believed that before the doomed flight, maintenance crew who had conducted a pressurisation check left the control in manual instead of automatic, so the aircraft did not pressurise as it gained altitude. But the crew failed to notice the setting in their pre-take-off checks, and the post-take-off checks require no further confirmation of the pressurisation control selection.
In the Helios case, when the audible cabin altitude alert sounded, the crew thought it was an erroneous configuration warning because the sound is identical. According to Tsolakis, the pilots’ “subsequent mindset and actions were determined by this preconception until hypoxia overcame them as the aircraft continued to climb.”
In September at Tsolakis` request, Boeing circulated a ‘reminder’ to flight crews about the difference between warning alarms for incorrect take-off configurations and cabin altitude.
Boeing acted to reduce the likelihood of flight crews misinterpreting a cabin altitude warning as the automatic aural warning for an incorrect take-off configuration and the aural alert triggered when cabin altitude rises above 10,000ft make the same sound.
However Boeing said the reminder “doesn’t mean [this] is necessarily the cause [of the Helios accident”, although it was widely seen within the industry as a tacit acknowledgement that cabin pressurisation and the CA warning were part of the investigation.”
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