An EU peacekeeping helicopter belonging to the Spanish military crashed in Bosnia on Thursday, killing the four service members aboard, two from Spain and two from Germany, officials said.
The cause of the crash near the north-central city of Banja Luka was not immediately known, but it was witnessed by a second Spanish military helicopter, Spain’s Defense Ministry said in Madrid.
Lieutenant Santiago Hormigo Ledesma and Sergeant Joaquin Lopez Moreno, both of the Spanish army, and two German servicemen died in the crash, the ministry said. The helicopter belonged to the Spanish military, the ministry said in a statement.
The helicopter went down around midday, said Lieutenant Commander Kerry Corkett, a spokesman for the peacekeeping force, which is also known as EUFOR.
He confirmed the four service members aboard the aircraft died.
EUFOR said the helicopter took off from Sarajevo on a routine flight, then issued a mayday call half an hour later.
“A second helicopter has confirmed smoke, but due to mountainous and heavily forested terrain nothing more could be confirmed,” a EUFOR statement said. “It is with our deepest sadness that there were no survivors.”
“Their lives were unfortunately cut short whilst actively engaged operating in support of maintaining a safe and secure environment in Bosnia,” Corkett told reporters.
In Berlin, German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung told the country’s parliament that the accident illustrates “what risks to life and limb are bound together with the mission for peace and stability,” and that he had received the news with great sadness.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he was “shocked and saddened” by the crash and conveyed his condolences to the families of the victims.
“The EUFOR mission, currently under the leadership of Spanish Major General Ignacio Martin Villalain, is making an outstanding contribution to the EU military operation in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Solana’s statement said.
“My sincere appreciation, my profound sympathy and my thoughts are therefore with you at this difficult time,” the statement said.
The crashed helicopter was a Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm BO-105 of German manufacture and was involved in transport operations for the EUFOR peacekeeping force in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Spanish ministry said.
An air accident investigation unit was heading to the scene of the crash, the ministry said.
Spain has 250 soldiers in the peacekeeping force in Bosnia, and Germany has 130.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS