MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Two crew killed as firefighting helicopters collide in midair in Greece

A British pilot and a second Greek coordinator, aboard the other aircraft, survived with minor injuries and will remain in hospital for 24 hours under observation

Two crew members were killed on Sunday when two helicopters battling a wildfire collided in midair in the Psatha area, on the boundary between Attica and Boeotia northwest of Athens, the Hellenic Fire Service said.

The victims were a Danish pilot and a Greek fire service liaison officer. A British pilot and a second Greek coordinator, aboard the other aircraft, survived with minor injuries and will remain in hospital for 24 hours under observation. All four crew members were located after the crash; two were found unconscious and later pronounced dead. Their names have not been released.

Video recorded by a bystander shows one aircraft striking the rotor of the other, which caught fire and fell into a ravine. The second made an emergency landing in an area of low vegetation. According to the Ekathimerini website, the survivors immediately reported the collision and guided rescuers to the crash site.

Two Bell 214ST firefighting helicopters collided mid-air while battling a major forest fire in the Psatha area, west of Athens, Greece, triggering a search and rescue operation.

Aircraft involved: One helicopter was Bell 214ST N511EV (serial 28105, built in 1982), while… pic.twitter.com/Jwd3qpLAfj

— FL360aero (@fl360aero) August 2, 2026

The two Bell helicopters were leased by the fire service from an Australian company, each carrying two crew. They had taken off from Elefsina military airport. In line with protocol, the country's entire Bell fleet has been grounded, a source at the civil protection ministry told the BBC. The same source said the British pilot was a private aviator hired for the wildfire season and was not part of any cooperation program between the United Kingdom and Greece.

The crash occurred in adverse weather. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said winds reached Force 10 on the Beaufort scale in several areas of the country. The gusts prevented water-bombing aircraft from collecting water from the sea, leaving helicopters as the only aerial assets able to operate. Mitsotakis expressed deep sorrow over the accident and sent condolences to the families. Three firefighters died in the line of duty on Wednesday.

The fire front was advancing on Sunday toward Megara and its industrial zone, with evacuation warnings issued through the 112 emergency system and police going door to door. Canadair aircraft, Chinook helicopters and Erickson Air-Crane units continue firefighting operations.

In France, the country's largest wildfire remains contained within a 420-square-kilometer perimeter, with hot spots still burning and nearly 3,000 firefighters deployed, alongside a second uncontained blaze in Provence. The evacuation of 224,000 people in the Gironde was among the largest in French civilian history.

Europe is the world's fastest-warming continent, having warmed more than twice the global average since the 1980s, according to the Copernicus climate service. An analysis by World Weather Attribution concluded that climate change made the extreme fire-weather conditions behind the French blazes at least twice as likely.