An Airbus H145M light utility helicopter of the Hungarian Armed Forces crashed on Wednesday in Croatia during a training exercise and a zipline put up my extreme athletes between two canyon walls may have caused the disaster. Two crew members are dead and the third is missing and presumed dead.
While the Hungarian Defense Ministry announced in a statement that the cause of the accident was still being investigated, the Hungarian-language, Balkans news portal balk.hu wrote that the helicopter crashed in a canyon near the Krka National Park, probably after it hit the steel cable zipline that had been stretched across the canyon by extreme sports enthusiasts.
A Croatian fire chief, Darko Dukić, who first arrived on-scene, stated: “A terrible sight greeted us. We found two bodies from the helicopter, we are still looking for the third one, and we assume that it is among the wreckage of the helicopter.”
Admiral Robert Hranj, Chief of Staff of the Croatian Armed Forces said, at a press conference at the Zemunik army base near where the accident happened that Hungarian Armed Forces experts are on their way and that the investigation into the causes of the crash will be “conducted according to NATO standards.”
Hungary’s armed forces have more H145M helicopters than any other model, with the last batch of 20 aircraft received just last year.
