Turks say Boeing sent out emergency signal

FLIGHT International magazine has reported that Turkish and Greek aviation authorities were disputing whether the Helios Airways Boeing 737 that crashed on Sunday issued an emergency transponder broadcast 90 minutes after it left Cyprus.

The magazine’s sister publication Air Transport Intelligence has reported that Turkish radar detected the aircraft broadcasting a distress code at around 10.30am, an hour and a half after it left Cyprus, and more than one hour after it supposedly lost contact with Nicosia and Athens control tower.

According to Flight International, such a move would require manual operation of the system, and would be the first indication that the crew realised they might have a serious emergency to confront.

However, Greek authorities told newspapers in Athens that they received no such broadcast.

The denial was followed by statements from the Turkish CAA and national airport authority DHMI to Flight International that the signal was detected by military radars and the controllers alerted the Izmir regional Air Control Centre, which in turn passed on the details to Bodrum-Milas airport, the Turkish ATC unit closest to the aircraft’s location.

“It was determined that the aircraft was not in Turkish-controlled air space and no further action was taken,” the magazine said.

According to yesterday’s Ta Nea newspaper in Athens, the plane flew over Rhodes at 34,000 feet at around 10.20am, shortly before Turkey said it received the signal.

The paper said the plane then began circling over the island of Tzia and at 10.30am passed over Athens airport. It then changed course back towards Tzia, and began circling again two more times before breaking out of the circle and heading north west towards Halkida at around 10,000 to 11,000 feet. It then changed course again towards Tanagra airport but crashed shortly after into the mountainside.

The flight path indicates that someone was trying to control the plane at some point before it crashed – and if the Turkish control tower was correct – that might have been as early as 10.30am.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.