A 22-year-old British tourist, Jack Fenton, has been decapitated by the blades of a helicopter near Athens, Greece. He was traveling with his brother and other friends, with whom he spent a few days on vacation in the Mediterranean country. The young man left the aircraft to take a souvenir selfie, but he got too close to the rear propeller of the helicopter and these, still in motion, reached his body.
According to a first reconstruction of the events, the helicopter landed at the Attica heliport, 40 kilometers from Athens. The young man, who was an Oxford student, opened the door of the helicopter, probably to take a selfie, and when he got out, the blades, which were still working, decapitated him.
On the other hand, Greek investigators claim that Jack had run back to the runway after disembarking so he could take a selfie, despite warnings from ground staff. The young man's friends, witnesses to the tragedy, deny it.
"He died instantly as he was hit in the head by the aircraft's small rear rotor," a senior police official told London's The Times: "There was no chance he would survive, his death was instantaneous." has added.
The police have opened several lines of investigation. In one of them, the pilot of the aircraft is accused of involuntary manslaughter for allowing the young man to get off the helicopter before it was completely turned off. "The blades were still working when the young man disembarked and our investigation is especially focused on possible negligence. They should have been stopped when he left the plane," says a Greek police source.
In turn, the British newspaper The Guardian has reported that police officers have accused two other crew members who were traveling with the pilot of negligence.
The victim's parents, who had traveled with him and his friends to Mykonos, were following the young men with another helicopter. The pilot, after seeing the scene, made a sudden maneuver so that the parents would not witness the horror. The aircraft took them directly to Athens where a private jet was waiting to transport the family to Britain.
