Ankara:

Four people died when a helicopter crashed into a hospital in southwestern Turkey on Sunday, the provincial governor said, blaming the accident on thick fog.

“The helicopter fell to the ground after having struck the fourth storey of a hospital during take-off,” killing two pilots, a doctor and an employee on board the vehicle, Mugla provincial governor Idris Akbiyik said.

“There was intense fog,” Akbiyik said, adding that the authorities were investigating the accident’s cause.

The helicopter took off in conditions with poor visibility from the roof of the city of Mugla’s hospital en route to the city of Antalya, as seen in images broadcast by the NTV television channel.

The chopper can then be seen drifting in the fog several minutes after take-off, before crashing into an empty field next to the hospital it hit, Turkish media reported.

The accident comes just under two weeks after six soldiers were killed when two helicopters collided during an army training exercise in Turkey’s southwestern Isparta province.

At the time the defence ministry did not specify what caused that crash.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

This handout photograph taken and released by the Demiroren News Agency on December 22, 2024, shows debris of a helicoper following a crash after it hit the fourth floor of a hospital during takeoff killing two pilots, a doctor and a worker on board, in Mugla.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Four people were killed in southwest Turkiye on Sunday (December 22, 2024) when an ambulance helicopter collided with a hospital building and crashed into the ground.

The helicopter was taking off from the Mugla Training and Research Hospital, carrying two pilots, a doctor and another medical worker, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Mugla’s regional Governor, Idris Akbiyik, told reporters the helicopter first hit the fourth floor of the hospital building before crashing into the ground. No one inside the building or on the ground was hurt. The cause of the accident, which took place during heavy fog, was being investigated.

Footage from the site showed debris from the crash scattered around the area outside the hospital building, with several ambulances and emergency teams at the scene.

Istanbul, Turkey:

Turkish scuba divers searched Sunday for three firefighters who went missing when their helicopter crashed into a water reservoir near the western resort city of Izmir.

Agriculture and Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli said the helicopter crashed while picking up water to douse a forest fire on Saturday night.

The helicopter team included three Kyrgyz nationals and one Turk. One of the Kyrgyz nationals was rescued and rushed to hospital in good condition.

“The divers have identified the wreckage,” Yumakli said in televised remarks.

“They cannot see anything clearly right now because the visibility is very low.”

Global warming caused by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions is changing weather patterns and contributing to a years-long drought across swathes of Turkey.

Turkey has funnelled resources into its emergency response efforts after being gripped by devastating fires in 2021 that killed nine people and heaped political pressure on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan responded by pushing through Turkey’s delayed ratification of the Paris Climate Accords and investing in new firefighting planes and helicopters.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)