A Russian Navy Beriev Be-200 (RF-88450) amphibious water bomber crashed into high terrain in Turkey on August 14th near Kahramanmaras, about 34 miles northwest of the city of Gaziantep, Turkey, killing all eight crewmembers which consisted of 3 Turkish firefighters and 5 Russian crew members. The aircraft was part of a massive international effort to assist Turkey, who have been asking for international help since the outbreak of massive wildfires that the country has never had to fight at this level previously.
Help came by way of helicopters and fixed with aircraft that included SEAT aircraft, Super Scoopers, and aircraft like the BE-200, a jet-powered scooper aircraft. The aircraft was dispatched to fight a fire already being attended by over 100 ground firefighters in the early afternoon and was reported lost at 2:30 pm local time. The aircraft was located by search and rescue personnel down on Engizek Mountain. All that remained of the aircraft after a post-crash fire was the tail section according to images posted to Twitter of the crash. Local authorities will be investigating the crash and making a report for the Turkish government.
