According to diplomatic sources, by order of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nikos Dendias, the Greek ambassador in Belgrade will make an immediate demarche regarding the need to inform the Greek side earlier than the Serbian one about the nature of the cargo of the Antonov aircraft that crashed near Kavala on Saturday the evening.
According to information cited by ANT1 tv, the Greek authorities had not been informed about the cargo carried by the Antonov and this is because Serbia, where the route started and where the company that chartered it is based, should have informed its embassy in Athens that the specific aircraft was carrying “sensitive” cargo.
The Serbian embassy in Athens, for its part, should have informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which in turn would have informed the Civil Aviation Authority based on the specific procedure, which would have given the relevant permission to pass through Greek airspace .
Thus, the evidence shows that Belgrade did not follow due process.
All eight bodies were recovered
On Sunday evening, the Armed Forces General Staff announced that during the operations, all eight bodies of the aircraft crew were located and recovered. The eight crew members were of Ukrainian origin.
This was followed by the transfer of the bodies to the General Hospital of Komotini.
The pilot’s dramatic dialogue with the Control Tower
Star channel has brought to light the dramatic dialogue the pilot of the fatal plane had with the Control Tower, minutes before the crash.
“We have an engine on fire. I’m trying to turn it off” says the pilot initially, informing about the problem. The Control Tower replies: “Can you get to Thessaloniki or Kavala airport?”.
The pilot of the Antonov 12 says that there are more problems with the aircraft and that he will try to land the aircraft in Kavala. The aircraft has already begun to lose altitude.
The pilot seems to have been looking for a flat area to land it on. The Control Tower requested an update. The pilot answered how he was losing one aircraft instrument after another. He never made it to the airport. Then silence. The radar ping was gone and the Antonov 12 had gone down…
What happened to the “black boxes”
During the second phase of the operation, specialized personnel of the Greek army and 30 firefighters participated to create safe passageways and transport bodies to a decontamination area.
The official announcements stated that all the forces of the Civil Protection Agency as well as police forces, the local government and the EKAV ambulance service contributed to the search for the identification and retrieval of the bodies as well as the helicopter of the single coordination center for search and rescue
During the detection operation, one of the “black boxes” was found, while it remains unknown whether the necessary answers will be given from its examination.
