A pilot died and another was injured this Sunday, June 2 in the afternoon during a collision between two small planes. They had come to participate in an air parade at Beja airport, in southern Portugal, according to authorities.
The two planeswere victims of an accident during an aerial demonstration” in which six aircraft participated on the occasion of the “Beja Air Show”, announced the Portuguese Air Force in a press release.
Another pilot hospitalized
During this collision, which occurred shortly after 4:00 p.m., this Sunday, June 2, a person “of Spanish nationality” died, the army said. Questioned by AFP, an army spokesperson specified that it was the pilot of one of the two planes.
Another pilot, of Portuguese nationality, was also slightly injured. “He received emergency treatment” before being “transported to Beja hospital“, a city of 25,000 inhabitants located in the south of the country, specifies the press release.
The two pilots belonged to a patrol of acrobats called “Yak Stars”, of Spanish and Portuguese nationality. They were flying Yakovlev Yak-52s, a small Soviet-designed aircraft intended for training and aerobatics.
A “tragic accident”
In a video posted on social networks, we see the six planes performing a demonstration a few dozen meters from the ground. One of them then gains height and suddenly appears to hit another aircraft before crashing in a cloud of smoke.
Two Yakovlev Yak-52 aircraft of the Spanish-Portuguese Yakstars formation team collided during the Beja Air Show, Portugal.
One aircraft crashed, killing the pilot. pic.twitter.com/4eHdT23mAC— Aviation Safety Network (ASN) (@AviationSafety) https://twitter.com/AviationSafety/status/1797301759548838163?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The plane fell to the ground and crashed “outside the air base perimeter“while the second aircraft managed to land on the tarmac, specifies the army in a press release. The accident did not”no casualties among those attending the event“, she adds.
Evoking a “tragic accident“, Defense Minister Nuno Melo assured journalists that an investigation would be opened in order to “determine the exact causes” of this collision.
Patrols from all over Europe planned
“It should have been a moment of leisure, meeting and shared joy, and it became a moment of pain“, underlined for his part the Portuguese President, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, assuring that he had for a time feared a human toll”higher“.
According to the Beja Air Show website, around thirty patrols of acrobats from different European countries were scheduled alongside the “Yak Stars”, presented as “the largest civilian aerobatic team in southern Europe“.
This air show, which began on Saturday, was “immediately interrupted“after the accident, according to the army, which announced in its press release”his most sincere condolences” towards the family and friends of the victim.
