Sunday, August 14 2005 19:56 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Athens: Greek police suspect that the crash of a Cypriot airliner with 121 people on board near Athens was caused by a sudden drop in the cabin pressure, a senior official at the Greek public order ministry said.

Earlier reports said that the plane's air conditioning system might have played a role in the crash.

The pilot mentioned a problem with the system when he spoke to the Athens control tower before contact was lost, the official told AFP.

But Government spokesman Theodoros Roussopolos cautioned in a statement that the cause of the crash was still unknown.

The flight, which originated in Larnaca, Cyprus was bound for Prague in the Czech Republic when it crashed as it was approaching Athens for a scheduled stopover.

"We're plumping for an accident, but cannot rule out other possibilities as long as the black boxes have not been analyzed," Roussopolos said.

The spokesman for the Greek army chief-of-staff Gerassimos Kalpoyannakis earlier said, "An act of piracy is likely."

The pilots of the two F16 fighters that were sent up to escort the airliner before the crash "saw a situation that was not normal in the pilots' cabin".

The Government spokesman said that Greek Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis had spoken with Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos about the crash.