Two crew members died Sunday when two helicopters collided while battling a blaze west of Athens, the Fire Service has confirmed.
The two dead men, a Danish pilot and a Greek serving as liaison officer and coordinator, were in the one of the two leased Bell helicopters.
The other crew, a British pilot and a Greek liaison officer, survived the crash with slight injuries. They immediately communicated the incident, pointing rescuers to the helicopters’ location. All four were taken to an Air Force hospital in Athens, but the crew of the one helicopter was unresponsive.
A video posted on social media, shows the two helicopters, with one flying slightly higher and behind the other. In the video, the first helicopter is shown closing the distance and slamming into the other, which bursts into fire and starts disintegrating and dropping to the ground. The video is cut at that point.
Following the deadly accident, all Bell helicopters were grounded, as protocol dictates. Eight Erickson and two Chinook helicopters were still fighting the blaze, alongside two Canadair planes. The whole fleet will be grounded at nightfall.
“I express my deepest sorrow for the tragic accident involving the two leased firefighting helicopters that claimed the lives of two frontline firefighters in the war on wildfires under very adverse weather conditions – especially for our aerial assets,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis posted on his X account.
“The loss of the Greek coordinator and the Danish pilot while operating on the large fire in Porto Germeno fills us all with grief. My sincere condolences to their families,” Mitsotakis added.
