A Turkish firefighting plane crashed near the Croatian coastal town of Senj this evening, Turkey Today reported, citing the Croatian Firefighters Association. The pilot died, Focus reported.
The AT802 plane, operated by Turkey's General Directorate of Forestry, lost radio contact at 18:25 local time while en route to Croatia. It was one of two firefighting planes traveling for scheduled maintenance activities in the country.
Both planes took off from Canakkale in northwestern Turkey on Wednesday morning and made a stopover at Rijeka Airport due to weather conditions. On Thursday afternoon, at 5:38 p.m., the planes took off from Zagreb again, but adverse weather forced them to return to Rijeka.
While one plane landed successfully, the second lost radio contact at 6:25 p.m., the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry confirmed. Search and rescue operations were immediately launched in coordination with Croatian authorities.