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A Cypriot Commission of Inquiry into the causes of an air crash in 2005 said on Monday that Cyprus' Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) had found several weakness and deficiencies of the Cypriot Department of Civil Aviation (DCA), which might be related to the tragedy that killed all 121 people on board.
Panayiotis Kallis, head of the Inquiry Commission said in a report that the department's procedures for airline certificate renewal were inadequate and its aviation safety division had only one full time employee instead of four as required.
On Aug. 14, 2005, a Helios Airways Boeing 737, on its way to Prague via Athens, crashed into the mountain side north of the Greek capital, killing all 121 passengers and crew on board, most of them Cypriot holidaymakers.
An independent commission of inquiry, headed by former member of the Supreme Court Panayiotis Kallis, has carried out an investigation to find out the causes of the crash and how the company and the crew got their licenses.
The report, released by JAA, indicated that the DCA's aviation safety division did not have sufficient supervision over airplanes.
Andreas Paspallides, who was an airworthiness inspector prior to the Helios air crash and now heads the aviation safety division, protested that its flight operations division had four employees instead of one.
Early in 2002, Kallis presented a report by the International Civil Aviation Organization, in which the organization said Cyprus did not make necessary progress to upgrade the country's aviation safety.
However, the organization expressed grave concern in August 2005 over the country's lack of effective air safety control capability.
Last Tuesday, angry relatives of the 2005-air-crash victims attacked Cyprus Communications Minister Haris Thrassou's car outside parliament and demanded him to resign, blaming him for overseeing the DCA that is accused of not carrying out mandatory safety checks on Cypriot aircraft.
It allegedly allowed low budget airline Helios to keep flying -- prior to the crash -- even though it had failed to meet air safety recommendations.
(Xinhua News Agency September 19, 2006)
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