Fri, May 25 2012

Greek pilot dies in fire-fighting aircraft crash

Thu, Aug 27 2009 17:09 CET

byClive Leviev-Sawyer

3511 Views 3 Comments
Greek pilot dies in fire-fighting aircraft crash

Orthodox nuns walk in the premises of a monastery as a fire-fighting aircraft drops water over a forest fire in Voutzas village, northeast of Athens, August 24 2009.


Veteran pilot Colonel Stergios Kotoulas died when his fire-fighting aircraft crashed in the Ionian Sea close to the Greek island of Kefalonia on August 27 2009.
 
Fire-fighting aircraft from Greece, assisted by European Union countries, have flown numerous missions in recent days to battle wildfires.
 
Greek media said that the crash happened as the 55-year-old pilot was bringing his aircraft, a Polish-made PZL (M-18 Dromader) from a fire-fighting mission, while other reports said that Kotoulas was departing on a mission.
 
Some reports said that the aircraft had been engulfed by flames. The plane was not equipped with an ejector seat.
 
Kotoulas was reported to have had thousands of hours’ flying experience in a wide variety of aircraft.
 
Greek president Karolos Papoulias and Greek prime minister Costas Karamanlis issued statements expressing their sorrow and condolences on the death of the pilot.
 
"(Kotoulas) fell at the frontline doing his duty, battling the fire," Papoulias said.
 

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Comments

Anonymous hassan Sat, Oct 10 2009 16:30 CET
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husin

Anonymous Aries Sat, Aug 29 2009 16:19 CET
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Great pity for the pilot.
The plane should have been decommissioned at long time ago.

AnonymousKonstantinos TranasFri, Aug 28 2009 11:01 CET

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained реклама & спам


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