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Two members, a pilot and a ground crew, are now facing manslaughter after a British tourist was reportedly killed by a helicopter propeller after landing in Greece.
A group of British tourists returning from Mikonos were to land at Spata’s private heliport and drive to Athens International Airport. There they were planning to return to England on a private jet. However, after the chopper landed, Jack Fenton, 22, from Kent, died after stepping into the still-rotating rotor blades of the Bell 407.
Ioanis Candilis, chairman of the Greek Air Accident Commission, said four passengers, including Fenton, were taken off the chopper and taken to a private lounge to wait for the plane to return to London. But when they were in the lounge, the victims left and returned to the tarmac, “rushing to the helicopter at a fast pace,” Telegraph said, Candiris.
“The witnesses we talked to were against him having a phone in his ear, walking fast towards the aircraft, and the ground crew yelling to him,” Stop, stop! ” I said that. A tragic accident happened within seconds. That was horrible. ”
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However, a friend who was traveling with Fenton, a junior account executive at a social media marketing company, categorically denied some of Candilis’s story, including that Fenton was on the phone.
“There was no instruction to get off the helicopter and no one took us to the lounge. All they had to do was open the door for us,” said Fenton’s friend Jack Stanton. Graves, 20, told MailOnline. “We disembarked ourselves and no one stopped Jack from going behind the helicopter. None of us arrived in the lounge before the accident.”
“I heard people say Jack answered the phone and returned to the helicopter, but this isn’t true at all,” he added. “He wasn’t on the phone and I don’t know why he turned behind the helicopter.”
Fenton studied at Oxford Brookes University and reportedly attended the $ 43,200 Sutton Valence School annually in Maidstone, Kent. His mother, Victoria, said her son wasn’t drinking.
“He got off safely when he landed in Athens, but for some reason he returned behind the helicopter and it was the rear propeller that killed him. It was immediate,” she told the Daily Mail. “He was out the night before, but yesterday he drank nothing but water. He and all his friends were sober.”
The Greek state news agency ANA reported that the pilot and two ground personnel were detained for interrogation. A Greek police spokesman told The Telegraph that he was charged with manslaughter and was transferred to Athens for court hearing.
A police spokesman said, “We are still investigating how the accident happened. It was a very disappointing case. We hope the British family will remain strong.”
The judge decides whether to release or detain the three.
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A spokesman for the Foreign, Commonwealth Development Department said, “We are supporting a British family who has died in Greece and is in contact with the local government.”