Irish football fans stranded after refusing to use Helios aircraft

Airline Industry Information, Oct 12, 2005

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An Irish tour operator has said that his group of 39 Irish football fans refused to travel home on a Helios Airways aircraft after it was grounded due to a suspected technical fault.

Tour operator Anthony Bernie said yesterday (11 October) that the fans had been stranded in Cyprus since Sunday (9 October) after refusing to use the same aircraft. The airline said that the suspected fault was an indication from the instruments of "a malfunction in one of the air systems", The Associated Press reported.

Earlier this year, on 14 August, a Helios Airways aircraft crashed into a mountain near Athens, Greece and the preliminary report suggested that the aircraft lost cabin pressure and eventually ran out of fuel. All 121 people on board were killed.

The football fans said that they were willing to travel on another aircraft operated by the same carrier.

The aircraft was a Boeing 737-800 that returned to Larnaca Airport on Sunday after taking off for Glasgow, Scotland, because the pilot suspected technical problems. It was the same aircraft that had had similar problems two days previously.

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