Authorities in Greece have confirmed that all 121 people aboard the Cypriot airliner which crashed in a mountainous area north of Athens this morning have died.
The Boeing 737 crashed after apparently suffering a loss of cabin pressure or oxygen minutes before it was due to land.
Fire chief Christos Smetis said there were no survivors among the 115 passengers and six crew on board the plane. "The fire is still burning and there are no survivors."
Rescue workers at the scene of the crash confirmed that there had been no survivors. "We have not found any survivors," a Greek fire department spokesman said. "Rescue teams are continuing to search, but it's difficult to expect to find survivors."
Greek TV station Alpha said the pilot had told air traffic controllers his plane was experiencing air conditioning problems. Moments later, communications with the plane, flying at 35,000 feet en route from Larnaca in Cyprus to Prague via Athens, were lost.
"The pilot has turned blue," a passenger said in a mobile text message to his cousin. "Cousin farewell, we're freezing."
.A Greek police spokesman said there were 115 passengers and six crew members on board, of which 59 adults and eight children were heading to Athens, with 48 continuing on to Prague.
Plane wreckage was scattered widely about the mountainous, uninhabited area, about 40 km north of Athens and dense black smoke billowed from several small fires.
"I saw many bodies scattered around, all of them wearing (oxygen) masks. The tail was cut off and the remaining parts of the plane rolled down a hillside about 500 metres away from the tail," one witness said.
Planes dropped water over the wreckage site as rescue workers fanned out searching for survivors.
Two Greek F-16 fighter jets were scrambled after the Helios Airways jet lost contact with the control tower at Athens international airport.
One of the F-16 pilots reported that he could not see the captain in the cockpit and his co-pilot appeared to be slumped in his seat, a Defence Ministry official said.
The Defence Ministry said it suspected the plane's oxygen supply or pressurisation system may have malfunctioned.
A senior government official said there were no signs of foul play. "But we are still investigating all possible scenarios," he said.
The crash was the worst airline disaster in Greek history.
A spokesman of the European Aviation Safety Agency said it was "highly unlikely that the loss of cabin pressure alone would cause such an incident. There would have to be other contributing factors."
As the extent of the disaster became clear, Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis broke off his holiday on the Greek island of Tinos to rush back to Athens.
Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos headed to Larnaca, where frantic relatives and friends gathered outside the offices of Helios.
At the airport in Prague, where friends and relatives had been gathering to meet the flight, screens showing departures and arrivals read simply "delayed".
Helios was Cyprus's first private carrier, established in 1999. It flies to Dublin, Sofia, Warsaw, Prague, Strasbourg and several British airports using a fleet of Boeing B737 aircraft.