The aircraft—a Dassault Falcon 900B flying from Ellinikon International Airport in Athens, Greece—was flying to Bucharest Henri Coandă International Airport in Bucharest, Romania, for the Interbalkan Conference of Foreign Ministers and was carrying Greek deputy foreign minister Giannos Kranidiotis.

However, this resulted in ten separate pitch oscillations with g-forces that exceeded the maneuvering load factor for the aircraft.

The investigation, conducted by the Romanian Civil Aviation Inspectorate, concluded several factors that led to the accident.

Control inputs from the cockpit go through a series of physical rods and bellcranks that cause the movement of servoactuators in the rudder, elevators and ailerons.

At low airspeeds, the Arthur unit adjusts the artificial feel to require little force to move the control column and elevators, while at high airspeeds, the Arthur unit adjusts the artificial feel to require high force to move the control column and the elevators.

Both captains had valid airline transport pilot licences issued by the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority.

In addition to him was his 23-year-old son, his personal guard, a cameraman from the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT), two ERT journalists, the director of the minister's office, a journalist from Vradyni, a minister advisor, the wife of the foreign ministry spokesperson, and an aircraft engineer.

[4][5][6] On 14 September 1999, SX-ECH was scheduled to depart Ellinikon International Airport in Athens at 18:00 UTC[a] to arrive in Bucharest Henri Coandă International Airport in Bucharest at 19:18 as OAL 3838, using the Olympic Airways ICAO airline code and the Olympic Airways call sign.

[3] 12 minutes later, First Officer Sinekoglou requested further descent clearance from air traffic control (ATC) to 5,000 ft (1,500 m).

Three days after the accident, ERT cameraman Panagiotis Poulos died in a hospital in Greece due to head and chest injuries.

[6][4] The aircraft structure was not damaged with the exception of a crack located in the upper fuselage caused by a catering container being ejected from its usual place in the cabin.

Additionally, representatives from Dassault Aviation, Honeywell, and Olympic Airways provided technical assistance to the investigation.

As a result, the CVR did not record any data and it was determined that the unit was unserviceable and most probably broken long before the day of the accident.

The DFDR showed that after the 10th oscillation, the captain was able to recover the aircraft after applying a continuous pull up input on the control column.

The aircraft recovered with an airspeed of 225 kn (417 km/h) before the DFDR data was rendered invalid by the reconnection of generator one and the battery, which were accidentally disconnected during the event.

[1]: 55 An analysis of the flight guidance computers showed that within a second before the autopilot disconnected, the horizontal stabilizer moved into a nose down trim position.

As long as only one channel (pitch or roll) is disengaged at once, the autopilot will still remain engaged and counteract any inputs the pilots make.

[1]: 65–66  Due to the misidentification of the Arthur unit's position, the captain incorrectly believed that it would behave as if it were in the high-speed configuration; as in needing a large amount of force to move the control column and elevators.

Each time, various maintenance actions were performed (such as the reset of the BAP), but not once was the issued referred back to Dassault Aviation.

[1]: 69 In their final report, the Civil Aviation Inspectorate determined four "casual factors" that led to the fatal accident: 1.

Inappropriate inputs on the control column at high speed and with Arthur unit failed in “low-speed” mode leading to Pilot Induced Oscillations.

[1]: 75 In June 2002, Captain Androulakis was convicted guilty of manslaughter by the Misdemeanor Court of Athens and was sentenced to five years in prison.