Esteemed flight safety expert Akrivos Tsolakis dies, aged 93

Captain Akrivos Tsolakis, a former Hellenic Air Force officer and a prominent air accident investigator, has died at the age of 93.

Born in 1930 in Thessaloniki, he graduated from the Hellenic Air Force Academy in 1950.

Tsolakis entered the field of flight safety in 1959 as an officer of the Hellenic Air Force, when he went to the University of Southern California for its aviation and security program.

When he returned to Greece, he founded the Army General Staff’s Flight Safety Directorate and later, as a pilot for Olympic Air (with 18,300 flight hours), he also set up a flight safety department at what was then Greece’s national carrier.

He was head of flight security for Olympic until he retired in 1990 and in 2001 was appointed president of the newly established Greek Air Accident Investigation & Aviation Safety Board (EDAAP).

Under Tsolakis’ stewardship, EDAAP investigated more than 250 air accidents, among which was the Aerosvit Flight 241 crash in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, in 1997, in which 70 people died; the three EKAV ambulance helicopters that crashed within just over two years of each other in early 2000; and the government jet that went down in 1999, killing then foreign minister Giannos Kranidiotis, his son and another five people. 

His biggest ever case was the August 14, 2005, Helios Airways Flight 522 crash in Grammatiko, eastern Attica, in which 121 people perished.