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Human error led to a Cypriot airliner crashing near Athens last August, killing all 121 people aboard, according to an official report leaked to the Greek media on Friday. The report indicates technicians in Cyprus, checking the decompression system following problems on an earlier flight, forgot to switch on its automatic activation. Once airborne, pilots forgot to check whether the system was switched on automatic or manual, according to the draft report by the Greek accidents investigation committee. As a consequence, the higher the plane flew the less oxygen was in the cabin, causing everyone aboard, except for a steward, to become unconscious.

The report said even if the steward, using portable oxygen bottles, had managed to land the plane all the passengers would have been dead because of a lack of oxygen. There was no comment from Cypriot authorities on the report. The committee was investigating why the Helios Airways Boeing 737-300 had crashed on a flight from Cyprus to Prague. The committee delivered the dossier to Cypriot authorities on Thursday. The Cypriots have 60 days to include their own findings before a final report is published. Long suspected to have suffered a loss of cabin pressure, the plane was on autopilot for more than two hours. A steward with a trainee pilot's license was grappling at its controls. Trailed by two Greek fighters which scrambled when the plane lost radio contact, it crashed into a mountain north of Athens after running out of fuel. Leaked to several newspapers, the report blames the Cyprus civil aviation authority for not following international safety checks and criticizes the airline for a lack of attention to air safety. Ajet, the successor company to Helios, said it would comment on the draft report within a specified 60 day deadline. "Our commitment to cooperate fully with the accident investigators stems from our sincere desire to establish the true causes of this tragic accident," it said in a statement. "We are required to keep the contents of the draft report confidential, hence we shall not be commenting on any issues that may be reported, until the publication of the final report."