EKAB helicopter wreck expected to yield clues
The crew members of an ambulance service helicopter that crashed off the Aegean island of Icaria last month, killing all four aboard, were buried yesterday. The main part of the fuselage and the severed tail section, which were raised over the weekend, were being transferred to Athens. The National First Aid Center (EKAB) Agusta A109E was lost while on a mercy flight on February 11, and its wreckage was only located late on Wednesday 1.2 miles off the island at a depth of 75 meters. It held the remains of the crew of two pilots, a doctor and a paramedic. Investigators said the fuselage was not very badly damaged. They expect to be able to discover the causes of the crash. Pilot Efstratios Fotiadis, co-pilot Ilias Lendis and paramedic Ioannis Kourolis were buried yesterday. A military C-130 transport plane transported the body of the flight’s doctor, Majed Safedi, a Palestinian, to Syria.
