Greece and Cyprus sought ways to speed up an investigation into an airliner crash that left 121 people dead after crashing into a mountainous field near Athens five days ago, dpa reported. "We decided to take additional steps to speed up both the identification of victims and the full clarification of the circumstances of the accident," Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos said after a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis in Athens. The Helios Airways crash has continued to baffle Greek and U.S. experts conducting the investigation. Investigators probing Sunday's Cypriot airliner crash in which 121 people died are convinced that the plane's air-conditioning and decompression systems played a major role in the accident, newspapers have reported. Experts from U.S. manufacturer Boeing have ruled out the possibility that the aircraft was shot down by either of the two Greek air force jets which had been shadowing it before it crashed into the side of a mountain in Grammatiko, approximately 40 kilometres north of Athens, the Greek daily Kathimerini said. --more 2335 Local Time 2035 GMT
