Russian water bomber crashes in Turkey with eight on board, no survivors

A Russian army water bomber plane crashed Saturday, August 14, with eight people on board, in Turkey where it was intervening to extinguish a fire. The Russian Defense Ministry announced that there were no survivors. The aircraft, a Beriev-200, carried five Russian servicemen and three Turks, according to Russian agencies.

The plane “Took off from Adana to participate in the efforts to extinguish the fires in Kahramanmaras”, in the south of the country, the Turkish defense ministry said in a statement. A Turkish aerial surveillance plane and helicopter were dispatched to the scene, he added. According to the state-run Anadolu news agency, a large number of rescuers were dispatched to the crash site, a mountainous area that is difficult to access.

The plane had been leased by Russia to the Turkish General Directorate of Forests, which was using it to fight the intense fires that have ravaged southern Turkey in recent weeks.

The aircraft crashed for an unknown reason, just as it had just dumped its cargo of water in order to put out a fire that had broken out earlier in the Kahramanmaras region, state television reported. Turkish TRT.

Series of natural disasters

This incident comes as Turkey has been facing a series of natural disasters for several weeks. Eight people have died in fires that ravaged the country’s southern coast from late July to early August. In addition, floods of unprecedented magnitude killed at least 51 people and nine injured in the north of the country.

The authorities announced this week that most of the outbreaks had been extinguished, but new fires have been reported in recent days, as in Kahramanmaras or Çanakkale (west). These fires have highlighted Turkey’s lack of resources in aerial firefighting, sparking strong criticism against the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Ankara was thus forced to lease several devices to Israel and Russia. Spain also sent a water bomber plane.