POLITIS: “Discipline in ruins”. The crash of a National Guard plane at Kolossi on Sunday in which the pilot and co-pilot were killed raises serious questions about the issue of discipline in the army. This is the opinion not only of politicians but also of military sources, the paper said. The biggest question that needs to be answered is why the two soldiers deviated from their planned flight path and headed in almost the opposite direction. The situation reveals that not only is there a lack of discipline but it seems of total relaxation in the National Guard. The situation was deemed twice as unacceptable as the plane’s occupants were supposed to be taking part in a military exercise.
PHILELEFTHEROS: “First light shed on crash”. Witness and other testimonies given to the police about Sunday’s military plane crash are being evaluated by army top brass. Informed sources told the newspaper that there are a number of unanswered questions relating to the tragedy for which there are at the moment only suspicions rather than facts as to why the crash happened. There are clues as to why the plane deviated from its course, the paper said. It also said the plane had been checked by engineers on Friday before the start of the Demetra military exercises, and had been given the all-clear
ALITHIA: “Misconduct in the National Guard”. The daily states that both the Ministry of Defence and the National Guard have lots of questions to answer in light of last Saturday’s air crash in Kolossi in which two officers were killed in a small military aircraft crashed into a field in the small Limassol village. The paper also looks into the comments of DIKO deputy Zacharias Koulias who stated that the Annan plan also played a part in the crash.
MACHI: “Crash raises many answered questions”. The right-wing paper also looks into the flight plan of the fateful C-9 aircraft which the paper states did not make sense. Although the plane was scheduled to fly over the Nicosia village Malounta during a military exercise, it instead flew in another direction where it began to circle of the Limassol village of Kolossi. The paper also makes mention of the previous military air tragedy in which the former National Guard Chief Lieutenant-General Evangelos Florakis was killed in a helicopter crash in 2002.
SIMERINI: “Disarray in the National Guard”. The paper cites three recent examples of failures in the National Guard, accusing the Defence Department of negligence and lack of discipline. 1) In February, the head of the KEN army camp in Paphos fires shots into the air. 2) In July an anti-tank weapon accidentally fires, injuring 18 soldiers 3) Two pilots are killed after flying outside of their flight path. The paper reports that EDEK president Yiannakis Omirou told Simerini that the Defence Minister will not offer his resignation as he did after the July accident because they were two different types of incidents.
HARAVGI: “Conclusions will come soon”. The daily says that the main questions to be answered surrounding the PC-9 Pilatus plane crash are why the plane was flying outside of its training path, why it was making dangerous manoeuvres, and why it flew so low over the church. The Defence Minister said that although there was no “black box” to recover, the investigations were making good progress. He added that the two PC-9’s had been inspected and had never been reported for malfunctions. The paper also noted that the girlfriend of the pilot denied that the pilot had sent her an SMS stating that he was going to fly over her house in Kolossi.
