The fatal aircraft was carrying ammunition and when it crashed, all eight crew members were tragically killed.
The last page of the fall of the fatal Antonov aircraft, on the evening of July 17 in Antifilippis Kavala, Pangaios municipality, was written with the removal of the wreckage of the aircraft from the place where it fell.
The fatal aircraft was carrying ammunition and when it crashed, all eight crew members were tragically killed.
We remind you that the Ukrainian-registered aircraft type Antonov 12, took off from Nis airport in Serbia with a crew of eight and a load of 11.5 tons of ammunition.
According to the flight plan that he had submitted to the competent authorities of Serbia, the aircraft would carry out a cargo flight to Bangladesh with stopovers in Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
It entered Greek airspace at 22:09 local time. At 22:37 the pilot informed the Athens-Macedonia Regional Control Center (KEPATHM) that due to a problem he would not continue to his final destination and that he would return to the departure airport.
At 22:42 flying east of Halkidiki he informed the air traffic controllers on the approach to Thessaloniki that he has a problem with engine number four stating: may day fire in engine four.
At 22:45 the captain had a conversation with the Kavala control tower and informed that he was heading for an emergency landing. Landing permission was immediately given for Chrysoupolis airport in Kavala. At 22:47 on Saturday 17 July, the aircraft was lost to air traffic radar.
The following day (Sunday, July 18) the operation to retrieve the eight bodies from the aircraft began and was completed, while efforts by special army units to remove the missiles from the area also began.
The area where the aircraft went down remained cordoned off for more than four months, during which time members of the Land Mine Clearance Battalion worked to locate and mark munitions that had been strewn across farmland when the aircraft struck.
The press representative of the Fire Service, Yiannis Artophios, had stated during the emergency briefing that “from the investigation carried out, no dangerous materials were found at the crash site of the aircraft”. In the following days, it was announced by the relevant control services that the analyzes did not establish that any dangerous substance had been dispersed into the environment.
The debris was removed
After many months of actions and thanks to the persistent efforts of the head of the Civil Protection Department of the Municipality of Kavala, Stavros Kevrakis, the head of the Air Accidents Investigation Committee Christos Kotsavdis, with the cooperation of the army, the police and the municipality of Pangai, the removal began of the major parts of the fatal aircraft. Within the next few weeks, the process is expected to be completed in order to completely release the area.
At the point of impact, the municipality of Pangaiou and the Holy Metropolis of Eleftheroupolis intend to erect a monument in order to honor the pilot and the seven-member crew of the aircraft, as thanks to their choice and maneuvers on the fateful night, they managed to keep the aircraft from falling into the residential area.
RES-EMP
Read the News today and get the latest news.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News and be the first to know all the news.
I have worked as a journalist for over 10 years, and my work has been featured on many different news websites. I am also an author, and my work has been published in several books. I specialize in opinion writing, and I often write about current events and controversial topics. I am a very well-rounded writer, and I have a lot of experience in different areas of journalism. I am a very hard worker, and I am always willing to put in the extra effort to get the job done.
