Third Greek navy airman found dead after helicopter crash

A Greek navy helicopter buzzes over a frigate special during a training exercise before the Olympic Games in the Aegean Sea, near Athens, on May 20, 2004

Greece's general staff on Friday said the entire three-member crew of a navy helicopter that crashed into an Aegean Sea islet a day earlier had perished, after finding the pilot's body. "The airman's body was found early this morning in the area of the crash," a general staff spokesman told AFP. The bodies of the two other crewmen killed when their helicopter crashed into the small Dodecanese islet of Kinaros during a pre-dawn exercise had been recovered on Thursday. The Agusta Bell helicopter had launched off a frigate and was last known to be flying at 400 feet (122 metres) but had given no sign of trouble before the crash, Greek armed forces chief Evangelos Apostolakis told a briefing on Thursday. "The (helicopter's) signal was lost at (0045 GMT)... and a thermal signal was located at (0240) on a mountainous area on Kinaros," a navy spokesman told the briefing. Kammenos cut short his participation in a NATO summit in Brussels and returned to Athens because of the incident.