Helicopter crash in Bosnia: a memorial to the victims in Rome
The circumstances surrounding the incident, in which four soldiers lost their lives and 11 were injured, are still to be clarified. Giorgia Meloni pays tribute to the fallen at the Villaggio della Difesa in Rome
Giorgia Meloni and Defence Minister Guido Crosetto visited the Defence Village set up at the Circus Maximus in Rome this morning, Friday 30 October, to lay a bouquet of roses. The tribute is to the servicemen who died as a result of the crash of the helicopter in which they were travelling, which took place on Thursday 29 October in Bosnia. The victims were two sergeants, Simone Ruggia and Claudio Marchesi, and two Red Cross volunteers, Franco Adriano Zecchillo and Laura Procacci.
The Ministry of Defence has announced that the event at the Circus Maximus, organised to mark National Unity and Armed Forces Day on 4 November, will be transformed into a place of remembrance and solidarity with the families of the victims and the eleven servicemen who were injured. The opening ceremony scheduled for 2 pm today has also been cancelled.
Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani is also expected at the Villaggio della Difesa; he has been in contact since yesterday evening with Italia’s Ambassador to Sarajevo, Sarah Castellani. This morning, the ambassador was at the hospital to check on the condition of the eleven survivors of the accident and facilitated a telephone call with Major Gabriele Nori, the pilot in command of the aircraft who survived the crash.
What might have happened
The circumstances surrounding the incident are still unclear. A video shows the helicopter – a CH-47F Chinook deployed as part of Operation Eufor Althea – spinning round on its axis whilst losing altitude, before disappearing behind some trees. There do not appear to have been any fires or explosions on board the aircraft, and weather conditions can also be ruled out: it was not raining, visibility was clear and winds were blowing at only around 5 km/h. The spin captured on video would suggest a technical fault, as Minister Crosetto speculated in the *Corriere della Sera*, but we will have to wait for the results of the investigation and the accounts of the eleven survivors – none of whom are in a life-threatening condition – to get a definitive answer. The helicopter crashed in the town of Gorice, in north-eastern Bosnia, yesterday afternoon.
