An Athens court has sentences three executives of a defunct Cypriot airline Helios Airways and a British engineer to 10 years in prison due to their role in the fatal crash of Helios Airways Boeing 737-300 in 2005. The aircraft crashed into a mountain after its oxygen supply failed and the pilots and most of the passengers fell unconscious.
Helios's former chief executive officer, its chief of flight operations, the firm's head pilot as well as a British engineer who had inspected the plane before it took off were all found the defendants guilty of manslaughter and negligence charges. The men have appealed the decision.
The three Helios executives had been acquitted by Cypriot court during a separate hearing about the accident however an investigation found the problem was caused by a failure to switch a valve affected the oxygen supply to the aircraft shortly after the plane took off from Cyprus's Larnaca airport.
Helios four sentenced to 10 years in prison
