One person is still missing after a helicopter crashed in the Aegean Sea in Greece.

Two others were seriously injured after the craft crashed on Wednesday afternoon while taking part in a forest firefighting operation on the island of Samos, according to the Greek Coast Guard.

“The Romanian helicopter pilot was found safe and sound by the Greek coast guard off Samos and transferred to the hospital on the island,” a coast guard official told AFP.

But "two crew members, a Romanian and a Moldovan were spotted unconscious in the water and resuscitation efforts are still underway," she said.

The fourth member of the crew, a Greek, is missing and a coastguard rescue operation was underway to find him.

Fighting a forest fire

The helicopter "was taking part in the fight against a forest fire in Samos", for its part declared an official of the fire service.

This forest fire broke out on the island around 2:00 p.m. (11:00 GMT) and three helicopters and five planes supported by around fifty firefighters began to fight the flames.

Strong winds of more than 7 on the Beaufort scale (which has thirteen degrees) blow in the region while the temperature reached Wednesday near 30 degrees Celsius.

Greece is almost every summer the prey of often violent forest fires.

European aid

To strengthen its means after the devastating fires of last summer which killed three people and ravaged 130,000 hectares, the Greek government asked, within the framework of the European Civil Protection Mechanism (MEPC), its European partners to preventively deploy this been firefighters from several Member States.

Thus, since July 1, 250 Romanian, French, German, Bulgarian, Finnish and Norwegian firefighters have successively begun to be deployed across the country.

Dozens of small and medium forest fires have broken out in recent weeks in Greece, fanned by strong winds and temperatures of more than 30 degrees Celsius, without however causing any victims so far.

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