Firefighting helicopters collide, killing two, as Greece battles wildfires

The two-man crew of a firefighting helicopter was killed in a midair collision in Greece as forces battled multiple wildfires that have devastated swathes of land, with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warning of "extremely difficult" days ahead.

Two hired Bell helicopters collided while battling a wildfire in the Psatha area west of Athens, the fire service said on Sunday.

"The pilots...were taken unconscious to hospital, where their death was confirmed," the fire department's director of communications Vassilis Vathrakogiannis said in a televised address.

The crew of the second helicopter was successfully rescued.

The fire department grounded all Bell helicopters in the area pending an investigation, state TV ERT said.

The two dead are a Dane and a Greek, Mitsotakis said in a statement.

The accident raised the death toll from this week's Greek fires to five, after three firefighters died in Crete and the Peloponnese.

???? Two firefighting helicopters collide while battling wildfire in western Attica, Greece

Pilot reports copilot injured after crash as search and rescue efforts continue for the second helicopter crew https://t.co/Itu3PDmSf4 pic.twitter.com/oKnscHDUpD

— Anadolu English (@anadoluagency) August 2, 2026

Television footage showed one of the helicopters colliding with the underbelly of the other helicopter before exploding and plunging to the ground.

The helicopters had been leased from Australia's McDermott Aviation, part of a fleet of 15. The company has said it has supported operations in Greece for the past seven years.

Officials had warned for days that violent winds made fire-fighting operations from the air hazardous, and most aircraft had been sidelined until Sunday.

Mitsotakis had earlier said Greece was experiencing "extreme weather conditions" with winds that had reached 100 kilometres (60 miles) an hour. "When the winds blow with such force, even the dozens of aircraft we have at our disposal cannot operate safely," he wrote on Facebook.

Hundreds of firefighters were attempting to keep a fire west of Athens from approaching the outskirts of Athens after it scaled a mountain overnight.

A 44-year-old man was arrested Sunday on suspicion of deliberately starting a fire on the Ionian island of Cephalonia, according to the Greek news agency ANA. Two other men working for an electricity company were arrested over a massive fire near the Porto Germeno coastal village on the Gulf of Corinth, which was apparently started by a power cable spark on Friday.

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Source: TRT