Ukrainian cargo plane carrying mortar rounds crashes in Greece killing all onboard

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Fire brigade official Marios Apostolidis told reporters staff with “special equipment and measuring instruments” had inspected the point of impact and fuselage.

Athens News Agency (ANA) said an investigation would be launched into the cause of the accident.

“We heard a deafening noise (and saw) a fireball approaching the ground. Then came the explosion,” Sofia, a mother of three from the nearby village of Antifilipi told ANA.

Local man Giorgos Archontopoulos told state broadcaster ERT he sensed something was wrong as soon as he heard the aircraft overhead.

“At 10:45 pm I was surprised by the sound of the plane’s engine,” he said. “I went outside and saw the engine on fire.”

“If he had crashed some seconds earlier, he would have hit our house,” 80-year-old Michalis Emmanouilidis, visibly shaken, told ANA.

The Ukrainian consul in Thessaloniki, Vadim Sabluk, visited the area on Sunday and the Greek foreign expressed its “sincere families ministry” to the victims’.

ANA said Sabluk confirmed the identities of the crew and the plane’s destination.

Serbia’s defense minister said the weapons shipment was not linked to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“Unfortunately some media have speculated that the plane was carrying weapons destined for Ukraine but that is completely untrue,” he said.

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