A German pilot and 10 Greeks were the only non-Cypriots who died in Sunday's crash, with the somber roll call including a four-year-old girl and 14 other children aged 10 or less.
"It's a tragedy but is it also a crime?" questioned Alithia newspaper after whole families were wiped out when the Helios Airways Boeing 737 plunged into a wooded hillside near Athens in mysterious circumstances on Sunday.
"Black Sun Covers Cyprus...121 dead, WHY?" demanded Tharros newspaper in a play on the word Helios which means sun in Greek.
The low-cost airline, which angered grieving relatives after a long delay in releasing a passenger list, on Monday announced that its remaining fleet of three planes had been grounded.
It was the most serious air disaster involving a Cypriot airline since independence in 1960. A total of 66 people died in 1967 when a London-Nicosia flight via Athens crashed into the Aegean.
Large congregations gathered in churches on the devoutly religious Greek Orthodox southern part of Cyprus, where candles were lit for the victims.
"I still can't believe what happened," said Dinos Kourousiaklis, a relative of a crash victim.
In a rare contact between the two rival communities on the divided island, the leader of the breakaway Turkish Cypriot statelet, Mehmet Ali Talat, called Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos to extend his condolences.
Cyprus has declared three days of official mourning with flags flying at half mast on government buildings, while Cypriot health minister Andreas Gabrielides joined a memorial service in Athens cathedral.
A special flight also left Cyprus for Greece carrying about 100 relatives who want to identify the bodies of those who perished on the doomed Helios flight 522, accompanied by psychiatrists and psychologists.
Many will have to give DNA samples as most bodies were burnt beyond recognition in the fire that broke out after the Boeing 737 crashed at Varnava, a largely uninhabited area 40 kilometers (25 miles) northeast of Athens.
Most of the front pages of Cyprus newspapers were black in memory of the victims and press reports raised questions about the safety of the plane, recounting previous instances of problems.
The tragedy came at the height of the tourist season, with August 15 a major national holiday. But Cypriots were not in a holiday mood, with restaurants and bars reporting a sharp downturn in business.
Cypriot media had earlier said that Helios pilots and flight attendants refused to board a flight from Larnaca to Sofia, describing the action as a "mini mutiny" although it was unclear if the refusal was over safety concerns.
"In the past two years alone there were several incidents involving troubled flights and urgent landings," said the English-language Cyprus Mail.
Other reports suggested the plane had been "problematic" but Helios issued a statement saying it was "fully serviceable and airworthy before departure".
The cause is still unknown, although officials have speculated that it may have been due to a sudden drop in cabin pressure or problems with the Boeing 737's air-conditioning system.
The plane's two black boxes have been sent to Paris for analysis.
© 2005 Agence France-Presse
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