Investigators searching for clues as to why a Cypriot airliner crashed into a mountainous region outside Athens at the weekend focused Wednesday on the testimony of one of the airline's former mechanics, dpa reported. Former chief mechanic for Helios Airways, Kyriakos Pilavakis, said the same jet experienced problems with cabin pressure last year because of a badly sealed door. "It was a flight from Warsaw ... The evidence showed that air had escaped from one of the doors - the right door at the rear," Pilavakis told Cypriot investigators during his six-hour testimony. Pilavakis resigned from the airline in January 2005. The co-pilot and two flight attendants on the doomed Helios airliner were among those still alive when it crashed near Athens, killing all 121 passengers aboard, the investigation's chief coroner said Tuesday. After completing autopsies on 26 victims of Sunday's mysterious crash, Philippos Koutsaftis said: "All the individuals, including the co-pilot and two stewardesses, died from multiple injuries to the body. They were alive when they died in the crash." Greek investigators initially believed most passengers were already dead - possibly due to a lack of oxygen or a drop in cabin pressure - when the plane plunged on a flight from Larnaca, Cyprus, to Prague via Athens. The chief coroner said autopsies on the dead passengers showed that, while they may have been unconscious, they were still medically alive when the plane went down. Greek coroners also hope an autopsy on the remains of the co- pilot will help explain how both pilots lost consciousness during the flight. The crash has continued to baffle Greek and U.S. experts conducting the investigation. "The crash involving the airline company Helios appears to be the most bizarre which has involved a Boeing 737-300 and will require more than six months in order for questions to be solved about what happened," Boeing investigator Jim Prou, told Greek daily Ta Nea Wednesday. He said that 15 aircraft of this type had crashed in the last 15 years, but none in circumstances remotely comparable to the Cyprus crash. --mor 1321 Local Time 1021 GMT
