THIS YEAR was supposed to bring closure to the families and friends of the 121 people who perished aboard a Cypriot airliner on August 14, 2005.
To some degree this has been achieved, although not all loose ends have been tied up.
All in all, 2006 has been an emotional roller coaster for the victims’ relatives: frustration, anger, and then finally a glimmer of hope for vindication.
On home soil, the search for the truth and those responsible began in earnest in May with the establishment of a committee of inquiry under former Supreme Court judge Panayiotis Kallis.
With all kinds of allegations – some of them outlandish – flying at the hearings, in hindsight many feel the committee’s real purpose was to serve as a public tribunal, with the responsible airline in the dock as the defendant.
Even before the crash report came out, the media had by and large decided that ajet-Helios and the Civil Aviation Authority were guilty as sin.
The first signs of resentment manifested in September, when relatives blocked the car of Communications Minister Harris Thrassou outside the parliament building, calling for the minister’s resignation.
The pent-up frustration and desire for justice boiled over last month, when relatives mobbed the former executive chairman of the airline Andreas Drakou.
As Drakou stepped into the room to address the committee of inquiry, he was met with shouts of “murderer”, “assassin”, and “you killed our children.” He had to be whisked away by security.
Some relief came in October, when the Greek investigating team released its long-awaited findings into the cause of the crash. The report cited pilot error as the direct cause, but also fingered the airline’s slack safety practices as a latent cause. Operational deficiencies in Civil Aviation were described as a “contributing factor” to the accident.
With the fact-finding mission out of the way, the focus fell on prosecution. But once again the mood shifted when the Attorney-general informed the public that it was not the job of the Kallis committee to bring the guilty to justice.
Rather, the committee’s findings were to be an auxiliary to a criminal investigation conducted by the police here in Cyprus.
Later in the same month, a public prosecutor in Greece launched criminal proceedings into the crash. Relatives welcomed the news, but it remains to be seen which of the procedures in the two countries will finish first, and whether either one will bring the culpable to justice.
Yet even now many observers believe the question of ‘what went wrong’ has not been satisfactorily answered. Although the crash report presents a relatively plausible explanation for the disaster, there are many grey areas that perhaps should warrant a second look.
For Helios-ajet, the end of the road came in November, when the cash-strapped airline announced it was terminating all operations due to accrued financial difficulties in the aftermath of the crash.
There followed the grounding of its fleet, as the government demanded an immediate payment of tax arrears.
Finally, just this month the Cabinet gave the go-ahead for the separation of the Civil Aviation Department from the state with the aim of improving its operations.
What’s in store for the coming year? The victims’ relatives are suing manufacturers Boeing for a string of build and design omissions, which they say contributed to the crash.
The litigation is almost certain to heat up, with Boeing arguing the case should not be tried in the United States but rather in Cyprus or Greece – the location of the accident.
To this end, the plane giants have enlisted the services of some of the top legal minds on the island, but the relatives’ lawyers seem unfazed.
There has also been a great deal of talk about an out-of-court settlement, what with reports that one group of relatives – Greek nationals – having already received compensation.
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