Tourist dies after being struck by helicopter rotor
Briton, 21, hit by aircraft’s tail propellor while disembarking at Greek airport, reports say
A BRITISH holidaymaker has died after reportedly being injured by the propeller of a helicopter while disembarking on the Greek mainland.
The man was reportedly in a group of British tourists, said to have included his parents, who had chartered the helicopter to fly them from the island of Mykonos to Spata, near Athens.
The apparent freak accident occurred yesterday afternoon as the group disembarked while the helicopter’s engine was still running, according to Greek media.
Two of the British men walked to the back of the aircraft where the 21-yearold was fatally injured after being hit by the tail rotor, reports said. Other reports suggested the man had been decapitated.
How the man came into contact with the rotor blades is under investigation by Greek authorities.
Emergency services attended the private helipad but found the man dead, Proto Thema reported.
It was reported that the group had planned to travel on to Athens international airport and board a private jet to return to Britain.
According to Proto Thema, the helicopter which landed first was carrying four passengers and landed at a helipad close to the airport, while the man’s parents were in the second helicopter.
The second helicopter was following and had not yet landed when the accident occurred, Proto Thema reported. The pilot of the second helicopter then chose to land at a different helipad to spare the man’s parents the horrifying scene unfolding nearby, it claimed.
The Foreign Office has been contacted for comment.
In March, a grandmother was killed in another freak accident near a helipad in Plymouth.
Jean Langan, 87, was thrown off balance as she walked with her niece on a footpath near a helipad at Derriford Hospital, Plymouth, where a HM Coastguard helicopter was landing with a casualty from a separate incident.
Another woman in her 80s went to hospital with a broken pelvis after her car door was blown shut in the incident, Devon and Cornwall Police said at the time. “Whilst the helicopter was in the process of landing on the helipad, the downdraught caused one member of the public, an 87-year-old woman from the Plymouth area who was on a nearby footpath, to be blown over,” Det Insp Andy Hodges explained.
Accidents involving people being hit and killed by propellers are significantly more rare. In 2020, Jorge Casillas Castellanos, 52, a Mexican tequila businessman, reportedly suffered a fatal injury to the head from a propeller as he tried to board a helicopter.