All eight crew members on board were killed when a Ukrainian cargo plane transporting weapons from Serbia to Bangladesh crashed in northern Greece late on Saturday, according to Greek and Serbian police.
According to Serbia’s Minister of Defense, the aircraft was carrying 11.5 tonnes of defense-related goods, including mortar and practise shells. He said that Bangladesh’s Defense Ministry served as the cargo’s purchaser. Witnesses reported seeing the plane crash in a ball of flames close to Kavala before it exploded upon impact in nearby cornfields at around midnight local time. The pilot had already requested an emergency landing after reporting engine issues.
Burning wreckage from the Antonov An-12 aircraft was seen scattered across fields in drone photos taken at the scene. The eight crew members perished in the disaster, according to the airline Meridian, which has its base in Ukraine. One crew member’s body has so far been found by Greek police, according to a spokeswoman for the civil protection department. A local mayor reported that six bodies were discovered during the initial drone survey of the region.
The special disaster response unit, military personnel, and mine clearing units, according to Greek officials, have been sent to the area. They issued a movement restriction order and gave households advice to keep their doors and windows closed.
Firefighters “felt their lips burning,” according to a fire brigade spokesman, who also reported that white dust was in the air on Sunday. The component has been tested, and according to Philippos Anastasiades, mayor of the surrounding area, neither radioactive material nor biological material that poses a threat to public health have been discovered.
According to a source, some local businesses and homes had power outages as a result of the crash, potentially as a result of the plane cutting through cables or getting scorched by the explosion. After the crash, other explosions happened during the night. Meridian’s general director, Denys Bogdanovych, claimed there was no connection between the crash and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
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