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MapN: Seven soldiers in crashed IAR 330-Puma helicopter, including two sea rescuers
The Ministry of National Defence (MApN) informs that seven soldiers lost their lives in a plane crash in Constanta County in which an IAR 330-Puma helicopter was involved.
According to MApN, in addition to the five crew members initially communicated, two Romanian Navy rescuers had also boarded the aircraft.
The IAR 330-Puma military helicopter of the 57th Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base had taken off urgently on a search and rescue mission to rescue the pilot of a MiG 21 LanceR aircraft. The helicopter lost its radio connection with the base around 20:44hrs and crashed in the area of Gura Dobrogei, Constanta County, approximately 11 km from the airfied.
Captain Costinel Iosif Nita, the pilot of the MiG-21 LanceR plane that crashed on Wednesday in the Constanta County, lost his life, the Ministry of National Defence reported. The pilot was 31 years old, married and had no children. Since 2014, he had been a pilot in the 861st Combat Aviation Squadron of the 86th Air Base in Borcea.
He had accumulated over 570 flight hours, of which approximately 420 on the LanceR MiG-21.
On Wednesday evening, a MiG-21 LanceR aircraft from the 86th Air Base, carrying out a patrol mission over Dobrogea region, lost its radio connection with the control tower, and at 8:03 pm, it disappeared from the radar, in an area somewhere between Cogealac and Gura Dobrogei localities. Search-and-rescue operations were launched as a matter of urgency, and a Puma IAR-330 helicopter took off to the area of the possible impact.
A commission of the General Staff of the Air Force and of the Military Prosecutor's Office attached to the Constanta Military Court continues the investigation into the circumstances that led to the crash.