Two Dead in Collision of Firefighting Helicopters Near Athens

Psatha – 02.08.2026: Two firefighting helicopters collided in midair on Sunday while battling a major forest fire west of Athens. One of the aircraft crashed after the collision in the Psatha area. Two crew members were killed. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis confirmed the deaths of a Greek operations coordinator and a Danish pilot and offered his condolences to their families.

The two helicopters were deployed over the fire zone in the western part of the Attica region. According to consistent reports, they were Bell aircraft, each carrying two people. The two occupants of the other helicopter, a Greek national and a British national, were rescued alive. No information on their condition was initially available.

The accident occurred during a particularly difficult firefighting operation. Strong winds drove the flames through dry woodland and hampered the work of emergency crews on the ground and in the air. According to authorities, several locations had to be evacuated as a precaution because the fire was approaching residential areas and an industrial site. Smoke and road closures also hindered evacuation efforts by land.

The fire broke out near Agios Vasileios on Friday, July 31, and subsequently spread toward Porto Germeno and into the forested mountains west of the Greek capital. Residents and visitors in endangered coastal locations were in some cases brought to safety by sea. On Friday alone, rescue workers evacuated 254 people from the affected area by boat. The evacuations illustrate how quickly the wind worsened the situation along the coast.

For the firefighting helicopter crews, the weather conditions posed an additional risk. According to reports from the scene, gusts also hampered water collection at sea. During such operations, crews repeatedly fly between water sources and fire zones, often at low altitude and with visibility reduced by smoke. Several aircraft operating at the same time must be closely coordinated.

There was initially no confirmed information about the cause of the collision. The investigation is likely to examine the flight paths, the distances between the aircraft, operational coordination and weather conditions at the time of the collision. It also remained unclear whether technical problems played a role.

On Sunday, Greece was simultaneously battling forest and vegetation fires in several parts of the country. Firefighters and water-bombing aircraft were also deployed on the Ionian island of Kefalonia and on the Chalkidiki peninsula. In Attica, wind, dry vegetation and difficult-to-access terrain kept emergency crews on high alert.