HELIOS AIRWAYS FLIGHT 522

The Airline:
Helios Airways, established in 1999, is owned by Libra Holidays Group (Britain). Libra purchased Helios in November 2004.

The Aircraft:
The Boeing 737-300, was manufactured in late 1997 as serial number 29099 and line number 2982.  It had its first flight on December 29, 1997.  It was originally sold to Deutsche BA (Boeing Customer Code 1S, hence 737-31S).  Its prior registration with Deutsche BA was D-ABDQ.

The aircraft was subleased to Helios Airways by Deutsche Structured Finance GmbH, Frankfurt at the time of the crash. (The owner/lessor is believed to be Deutsche Operating Lease AG, but this is not proven).

Helios Airways has leased the aircraft since April 15, 2004.  At the time of the crash, it was registered in the Cypriot aircraft registry as 5B-DBY.

Background and History of the Flight:
Flight 522 departed Larnaca at 9:00 a.m. local time with 115 passengers, 4 cabin crew and 2 pilots, for a total of 121 people on board.

Service & Maintenance History of the Aircraft:
As of June 30, 2005, the aircraft had accumulated 15,160 flight hours.

The Flight Crew:
Flight 522 was operated with Martin Hans Gurgen as captain and pilot in command. Pambos Haralambous was the first officer.  The first officer was the pilot flying (PF), and the captain was the pilot not flying (PNF).

The Passengers & Crew
The passengers consisted of 99 Cypriot citizens, 12 Greek citizens, and 4 Armenian citizens.  The 6 crew were all Cypriot, except for one German pilot. 67 of the passengers were to disembark at Athens, while 48 were to continue on to Prague, the final destination of Flight 522.

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