Two firefighting helicopters collided mid-air while battling wildfires near the Psatha area west of Athens, Greece, on Sunday, August 2, 2026 [1, 2, 3]. The aircraft, leased Bell helicopters, each carried two crew members: a foreign pilot and a Greek firefighting coordinator [3, 4].
Four workers were aboard the helicopters in total. Two crew members—a Danish pilot and a Greek firefighting coordinator—were found unconscious and later died. Two others—a Greek coordinator and a British pilot—survived with minor injuries [1, 5, 3, 6, 4].
The helicopters took off from the Elefsina military/air base in West Attica shortly before the collision [7, 8, 6, 4]. The crash prompted a large-scale search and rescue operation that recovered all crew members [2, 8, 6, 4].
Strong winds of up to 100 km/h hampered firefighting efforts over multiple wildfire fronts in western Attica near Athens, including areas such as Porto Germeno, Psatha, Fokida, Megara, and Kefalonia [2, 9]. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis described them as "extremely difficult days ahead." He said, "When the winds blow with such force, even the dozens of aircraft we have at our disposal cannot operate safely" [2].
Firefighting operations have mobilized over 500 firefighters addressing multiple fire fronts west of Athens [1, 2]. The exact cause of the collision remains under investigation [3, 4].
Firefighters continued battling fires on August 3 as winds eased but fire risks remained high [9].
