spared time in jail after the intervention of the Bulgarian government, who felt that he was innocent of the charges. Greek investigators blamed the crash of the Helios Airways flight outside Athens on human error, after the aircraft failed to pressurize after taking off from Larnaca Airport. Prosecutors in both countries blamed airline officials for cutting corners on safety operations, while also arguing that they failed to act on advice that the pilots did not meet the necessary aviation standards. Relatives of the dead filed a class action suit against the Cypriot government—specifically the Department of Civil Aviation—for negligence that led to the air disaster. They claimed that the DCA had ignored airlines' loose enforcement of regulations, and that in general, the department cut corners when it came to flight safety. In popular culture The Discovery Channel Canada/National Geographic TV series Mayday featured the accident in a Season 4 episode titled "Ghost Plane". The 2020 novel Lost Love Song by Minnie Darke adapted the accident as a plot device. In the novel it is a fictional Australian airline that crashes in the ocean, but almost all other circumstances are the same. See also 1999 South Dakota Learjet crash 2000 Australia Beechcraft King Air crash 2022 Baltic Sea Cessna crash References Cited text: Air Accident Investigation and Aviation Safety Board (AAIASB) Final report: Aircraft Accident Report: Helios Airways Flight HCY522 at Grammatiko, Greece on 14 August 2005 (Archive), published November 2006 Alternate location of final report (Archive) Greek version of the final report (Archive) Further reading External links 2005 disasters in Greece Accidents and incidents involving the Boeing 737 Classic Airliner accidents and incidents caused by fuel exhaustion Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot incapacitation Airliner accidents and incidents involving in-flight depressurization Aviation accidents and incidents in 2005 Aviation accidents and incidents in Greece 2005 in Cyprus 2005 in Greece August 2005 events in Europe Cyprus–Greece relations