As investigations into the incident intensified, Greece’s chief air accident investigator told the Guardian his main concern was why the plane’s engines were still running when Jack Fenton and his friends got off it on Monday. “That was the question I asked the pilot and the ground engineers: why were the engines still running?” said Ioannis Kondylis, who heads the country’s Aviation Accident Investigation and Safety Board. “And they replied that they have two procedures, both approved by civil aviation.” The first, he said, allowed passengers to disembark while the aircraft’s propellers were still in motion if the doors opened from the outside and ground staff escorted them to the terminal. The second required shutting down the engines. “I think as a precaution, for obvious safety reasons, we will propose to change the process and shut down the engines,” he added, saying the state agency would send the results of its own investigation not only to the Greek government but also to the Civil Aviation Authority. of the United Kingdom. Fenton, 22, was killed instantly when he was struck by the tail rotor of a Bell 407 helicopter which, at the end of a birthday party, had brought him and a group of friends from Mykonos. The privately chartered aircraft, part of a fleet operated by Megara-based Superior Air, had landed just a few minutes earlier at the Lolos heliport near Athens International Airport. Spinning at up to 500 revolutions per second, the propeller would be virtually invisible, experts say. Greek police initially said the incident occurred when the Oxford Brookes student, in defiance of regulations, tried to take a selfie after disembarking safely. Local media reported that Fenton was running towards the tail of the plane with his mobile phone in hand as horrified onlookers shouted for him to stop. However, a school friend who was traveling with Fenton reportedly denied this version of events, claiming they had not been escorted to the helipad terminal or given directions as they exited the aircraft. “All they did was open doors for us,” Jack Stanton-Gleaves was quoted as saying by Mail Online. “We disembarked ourselves and no one stopped Jack from going to the back of the helicopter.” The plane’s pilot and two ground engineers were briefly detained but released pending the results of an urgent investigation ordered by a Greek prosecutor. All could face involuntary manslaughter charges. Kondylis admitted that the ongoing investigations will ultimately depend on witness statements and any other documentary information because, unlike airplanes, the helicopters did not have flight data and cockpit voice recorders. “We can’t just accept what they say,” he said, referring to Superior Air. “They have to show proof. We are awaiting input on their written procedures and their airway manual. I learned that there were five other passengers waiting at the [airstrip] goal [to board helicopters] and they will have seen what happened. Their data will be very important. Maybe one of them took a video, real information that cannot be denied.”
