Two firefighting helicopters collided west of Athens on Sunday in a helicopter crash during Greece’s wildfire response, killing the two-person crew of one aircraft. The other helicopter’s two crew members were rescued.
Vassilis Vathrakogiannis said, “The pilots... were taken unconscious to hospital, where their death was confirmed.” The two dead were a Dane and a Greek, as more than 500 firefighters and forest commandos were already battling flames near Athens.
Athens firefighting under gale-force winds
Greece was dealing with fires that pushed toward settlements on Athens’ western fringes, where gale-force winds had exceeded 78mph (125km/h) in recent days. Overnight before Sunday, more than 100 homes were destroyed around Porto Germeno, adding to the pressure on crews trying to keep the fire away from inhabited areas.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis posted that, “When the winds blow with such force, even the dozens of aircraft we have at our disposal cannot operate safely.” Evangelos Tournas said at the weekend that the fire department had been “pushed to its limits” and described “extremely difficult conditions resulting in many cases where aircraft either cannot draw water or cannot carry out drops due to extreme turbulence.”
Greece wildfire crews under strain
Last week, three Greek firefighters died from injuries sustained while they fought blazes, adding to the strain on crews across Greece. The collision west of Athens happened inside that wider emergency, when firefighting aircraft were being used to protect settlements near Athens but the same winds that drove the flames also made flight operations unsafe.
In France on Sunday, the largest wildfire remained contained after 224,000 people were forced to flee, while nearly 3,000 firefighters were deployed against the Gironde mega-fire and a second blaze in Provence. For Greece, the immediate effect is stark: two crew members are dead, two others survived, and the fire response around Athens is still being shaped by wind and ground crews rather than aircraft alone.
