Helios prosecution’s witness slammed as ‘waste of taxpayer money’

FRENCH CIVIL aviation expert Philippe Plantin de Hugues yesterday concluded his testimony in the ongoing Helios trial.
The second day of his cross-examination concluded in just over an hour, which was considered brief for the usually thorough George Papaioannou.
The defence lawyer repeatedly asked Plantin de Hugues the same questions which the Frenchman couldn’t answer.
“Are you sure the data of the FDR (Flight Data Recorder) and CVR (Cockpit Voice Recording) are in sync?”
Plantin de Hugues could not say he was 100 per cent sure because it wasn’t his responsibility to determine that.
“Do you know that this particular FDR records autopilot disengagement?”
“I don’t know because I didn’t do the FDR readout,” the Frenchman said.
The French civil aviation expert was brought in to testify with respect to his role in extracting data from the memory card of the black box and to play a CVR recording of the flight’s final 30 minutes. He was not able to testify as to the content of the recording or to give a transcript of what was on it.
Plantin de Hugues is employed at BEA (Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety), an agency of the French government based on the grounds of Paris-Le Bourget Airport, responsible for investigating aviation accidents and making safety recommendations based on what is learned from those investigations. 
Yesterday’s line of questioning seemed to lead nowhere and a lawyer attending the proceedings later asked the benefit of bringing the witness in to testify.
“It was a waste of time and taxpayers’ money. There are over 300 prosecution witnesses and they are going to call 100 to testify.
“This is the third one to testify and I wonder why he was brought in. Tomorrow they are bringing in his colleague to testify who was responsible for the extraction of the FDR and I think it will be a similar testimony to what we heard the past few days,” she said.
The problem with Plantin de Hugues’ testimony was that he was not an expert on the contents of the CVR recording and was only responsible for the readout of the recording.
He had made no transcript and so could not say what all the sounds meant on the recording.
On Monday the courtroom listened to the 30-minute CVR recording without knowing what the significance of various beeps and buzzing noises were. Only the words “mayday, mayday, mayday” rang out clearly, devastating the victims’ family members.
In August 2005 a Boeing 737-300 jet operated by Helios Airways en route to Athens crashed killing all 121 people on board. It was the worst aviation disaster in Cypriot history.
The Attorney general’s office decided to prosecute five people for over a total 1,000 charges including manslaughter. The accused are Andreas Drakos, chief executive officer of Helios; Demetris Pantazis, general manager; Giorgos Kikidis, operations manager; Ianko Stoimenov, chief pilot; and Helios Airways as a legal entity.

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