A Russian army water bomber plane crashed on Saturday, killing all eight people on board, in southern Turkey, where it was intervening to put out a fire, authorities in Ankara and Moscow said. A Turkish air surveillance plane and a helicopter were dispatched to the scene and confirmed that there were no survivors.
Turkish television channels broadcast images showing a plume of smoke rising from a mountainous area that was difficult to access. According to the state news agency Anadolu, a large number of rescuers were dispatched to the crash site.
The plane, a Beriev-200, had been leased by Russia from Turkey’s Directorate General of Forests, which was using it to fight the intense fires that have ravaged southern Turkey in recent weeks. According to Russian agencies, eight people were on board the plane: five Russians and three Turks. The plane crashed for some reason as it had just dropped its cargo of water to put out a fire that had previously broken out in the Kahramanmaras region, Turkish state television channel TRT reported.
The incident comes as Turkey has faced a series of natural disasters for several weeks, including fires in the south and floods in the north. Eight people died in the fires that ravaged the southern coast of the country from late July to early August. Authorities announced this week that most of the outbreaks had been extinguished, but new fires have been reported in recent days, such as in Kahramanmaras or Canakkale (west).
These fires have highlighted Turkey’s lack of resources in fighting aerial fires, prompting strong criticism against the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Therefore, Ankara was forced to rent various devices to Israel and therefore to Russia. Spain also sent a water bomber plane to help.