The aircraft suddenly unscrewed to crash at sea. All three crew members perished.
An Algerian naval force helicopter crashed into the sea on Wednesday morning off the commune of Bouharoun, in the province of Tipaza, near Algiers. At first, the Defense Ministry announced that a lieutenant had perished and that two other officers were missing. The bodies of the latter were recovered after a few hours of research.
The MS-25 Merlin-type military search and rescue helicopter was on a technical training flight, with a crew of three pilots on board, the ministry said. A few seconds amateur video shows the aircraft unscrewing before crashing into the sea in good weather.
“We deplore the deaths of Lieutenant-Colonel Kharoussa Nouredinne, Lieutenant-Colonel El Ouafi Mohamed Lamine and Lieutenant Bouzayda Nouredine,” the ministry announced in a second statement, once the bodies of the other two officers were found.
The army chief of staff, General Saïd Chengriha, sent his condolences to the families of the victims. An investigation has been opened. This is the second military crash of the year. Two air force officers were killed on January 27 when their Sukhoi SU-30 fighter crashed about 400 km east of Algiers.
URGENT: Crash d'un hélicoptére à Bouharoun, wilaya de #Tipasa pic.twitter.com/FTEG5q4XNo
— Le Soir d’Algérie (@soir_officiel) December 16, 2020
Several air accidents, involving helicopters or civil and military planes, have occurred in recent years in Algeria. Two military helicopter accidents in May and June 2017 left three and two dead, respectively.
The worst recent disaster dates back to April 2018, when an Ilyushin-76, a Russian military transport plane, crashed shortly after taking off from the Boufarik base, south of Algiers, killing 257 people, mostly soldiers and military personnel. members of their families.
The National People’s Army has been overwhelmingly equipped with Russian equipment since the independence of Algeria in 1962.
