Two helicopters crash mid-air while tackling wildfires in Greece as more than 100 homes destroyed

The Greek fire service confirmed in a statement: “During the aerial firefighting operation, two BELL helicopters, leased by the fire department, with a crew of two people each, crashed in the wider area of Psatha, Attica.”

Both helicopters had departed from Elefsina military airport before the collision took place over the fire-ravaged region northwest of the capital.

Authorities immediately launched a search and rescue operation to locate and assist the four crew members involved.

A government official subsequently told reporters that the crew of one helicopter had been found and were “safe”, with an ambulance dispatched to collect them.

The second aircraft has also been located, but its two occupants have not yet been accounted for, with search and rescue teams continuing efforts to find them.

Images circulated by Greek media outlets appeared to show severely damaged helicopter wreckage strewn across a road in the vicinity of the crash site.

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GREEK CITY TIMES

The precise circumstances surrounding the mid-air impact remain under investigation, with officials yet to confirm what role, if any, the extreme weather conditions plaguing the region may have played in the incident.

Just hours before the collision, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had publicly cautioned that firefighting aircraft were unable to operate safely in the powerful winds battering the country.

In a Facebook post published earlier today, Mr Mitsotakis acknowledged that despite unprecedented investment in firefighting resources, there were limits to what could be achieved in such extreme conditions.

He wrote: “When winds blow with such intensity, even the dozens of aerial assets at our disposal cannot operate safely,” adding that on multiple occasions in recent days it had proved “impossible to either draw water or drop it, as extreme turbulence made flights impossible”.

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REUTERS

He described moments “when the force of nature and the intensity of weather conditions exceed all human planning and every operational capability”.

Officials had previously attributed the rapid spread of fires northwest of Athens to strong winds, though the exact weather conditions at the moment of the collision have not been established.

The collision occurred against the backdrop of a devastating wildfire crisis gripping the Greek mainland, with close to 500 domestic firefighters deployed to the affected region alongside support teams from France and Romania.

More than 100 homes have been reduced to ruins by the blazes, which have been driven by gale-force winds across the landscape northwest of Athens.

Firefighting crews concentrated their efforts on halting the fire’s advance towards the coastal town of Megara, home to roughly 30,000 residents.

Greek newspaper Protothema reported that upwards of 10,000 hectares of land had likely been consumed by the blaze.

Overnight, a separate fire on the Ionian island of Kefalonia forced the evacuation of several settlements after flames erupted in the Pastra area in the south.

The helicopter crash caps an already deadly week for Greece’s firefighting services, with three personnel losing their lives in the line of duty across the country.

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REUTERS

On Wednesday, two firefighters aged 23 and 27 perished while responding to a blaze affecting agricultural and forested land in the Rethymno region of Crete.

Both men were discovered unconscious outside their fire truck after becoming trapped between two fire fronts, and an investigation into their deaths has been opened.

A third firefighter was found unconscious near the southern Peloponnese port town of Gytheio and subsequently pronounced dead.

The fire department said the three “fell heroically in the line of duty, safeguarding the lives and property of citizens as well as the natural environment.”