Near the Croatian town of Senj, an Air Tractor AT-802 aircraft crashed yesterday while on a circular flight between Rijeka and Zagreb, the Civil Protection Directorate of the Republic of Croatia reported.
The crash claimed the life of 45-year-old pilot Hasan Bahar. Bahar was known to the public as the pilot who survived the crash of a firefighting aircraft on August 29 this year in the Jatağan district of Muğla Province in northwestern Turkey.
Civil Protection received a report about the aircraft disappearing from radar at 16:53 from Croatian Air Traffic Control, while at 17:11 information arrived that the plane had crashed and that a fire had broken out.
Rescue teams quickly reached the crash site. The fire was contained at 18:00, when firefighters found the carbonized body of the pilot. According to unofficial information, two Turkish Air Tractors were flying from Rijeka toward Zagreb, but turned back due to dense fog. One aircraft managed to land at the airport on Krk, while the other disappeared from radar.
The chief aviation accident investigator, Danko Petrin, stated that this was a working aircraft of the type frequently used by the Croatian military during firefighting operations.
The 24sata.hr portal reports that firefighters found the wreckage of the plane not far from a local school.
The investigation showed that the pilot had issued a distress call — the so-called “Emergency” signal — shortly before the crash, after which the aircraft soon disappeared from radar.
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Source: Portal analitika, Foto: JVP SINJ ; Printscreen Facebook