ALL 121 people on board a Cypriot airliner died when it crashed into a mountainous area north of Athens yesterday after it apparently suffered a catastrophic loss of cabin pressure or oxygen minutes before it was due to land.

There were 48 children on board, according to a spokesman for Helios Airways. It was reported that they were travelling to a sports tournament in Prague, the plane’s final destination.

Most of the 115 passengers were Greek Cypriots but the total included an unknown number of foreigners. There were six crew. One passenger sent a relative a text message minutes before the crash, saying that the pilots were unconscious and adding: “Farewell, cousin. Here, we’re frozen.”

Two Greek F16 fighter jets sent to intercept the jet reported that the co-pilot of the airliner was slumped in his seat and the captain was not in the cockpit, while oxygen masks could be seen hanging from the cabin. When the two F16s flew by a second time, they saw two people trying to take control of the Boeing 737, but it was unclear if they were members of the crew or passengers.The air force jets, scrambled from a military base near Athens under anti-terrorism security measures, reported the passenger aircraft “renegade”, or unidentified, and tracked it, helpless to save the Boeing, until it began to lose height and crashed in a wooded ravine in Grammatikos, 25 miles north of Athens.

The Helios jet wandered apparently aimlessly over an area north of Athens for more than 90 minutes. The control tower at Athens International Airport lost contact with the plane at 10.07am local time, just over an hour after it took off. It was not until 12.05pm that it crashed.

Some of the dead were found still strapped into their seats and wearing oxygen masks, witnesses said. The cause of the crash was unclear, but officials in Cyprus and Greece were ruling out terrorism and suggested that a technical problem, possibly decompression, was to blame.

The pilot had told air traffic controllers that the Boeing, which departed from Larnaca and was scheduled to stop in Athens before continuing to Prague, was experiencing air-conditioning problems.

Seconds later, communications with Helios Airways Flight HCY 522, flying at 35,000ft, were lost. The temperature outside would have been -50C (-58F). The only piece of the aircraft that remained intact was the vertical tail section. Bodies, clothing and debris were strewn over a wide area.

Helicopters rushed to the crash site along with firefighting planes that swooped in low to extinguish bush fires. Rescue teams were joined by local residents who tried desperately in vain to find survivors.

“I saw many bodies scattered around,” one witness said. “All of them were wearing (oxygen) masks. The tail was cut off and the remaining parts of the plane rolled down a hillside about 500 metres away from the tail.”

Several witnesses said that they saw the aircraft flying low over eastern Athens. Seconds later they heard a crash. “I never saw it slowing down,” one witness said.

Georges Constantopoulos, the Greek Health Secretary, said: “There are enormous difficulties in identifying the bodies.”

Haris Thrassou, the Cypriot Communications and Works Minister, said: “It looks as if the passengers on board were already dead before the aircraft crashed.”

Cypriot officials said that relatives of victims would be flown to Athens this morning to provide DNA samples for identification. The airline’s manifest had only the surnames and initials for forenames but did not have ages or nationalities.

News of the crash reached Cyprus at about midday. Within minutes relatives began converging on Larnaca airport. After waiting up to six hours to be told if their loved ones were on board, some had to be restrained by police as they were called in by airline staff to check names against the list.

Fears of a terrorist attack receded as reports came through of a loss of cabin pressure. There was no sign of foul play, a senior Greek government official said.

The crash was a “puzzle”, Kieran Daly, editor of Air Transport Intelligence, said. “There are very good procedures in place for dealing with a lack of oxygen. There are so many warning systems, the crew should have been aware there was a problem.”

Daniel Holtgen, of the European Aviation Safety Agency, said: “It is highly unlikely that the loss of cabin pressure alone would cause such an incident. There would have to be other contributing factors.”

AIRLINE'S HISTORY

In December 2004, a Helios aircraft lost cabin pressure and made an emergency landing at Larnaca. Three passengers were taken to hospital

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