Greece has filed an official complaint with Serbia on Monday for not having reported on the flight of the plane loaded with ammunition for mortars that crashed on Saturday in the northeast of the Hellenic country. The fall caused several explosions for at least two hours. Had they known the type of cargo that the aircraft cleared, the emergency teams would have had an easier time deciding which troops had to be deployed to the area, since the drone images showed an unknown white substance that forced them to send specialists in chemical and biological materials to the accident site and confine the neighbors.
The Antonov An-12, operated by the Ukrainian company Meridian, was carrying 11.5 tons of defense products, including mortars and training shells, made in Serbia to Bangladesh. It went down in a fireball and exploded on impact in cornfields near the town of Kavala at around 11 p.m. on Saturday. The bodies of the eight crew members, of Ukrainian nationality, have been recovered this Monday.
Before crashing, the pilot had reported engine problems and had been given permission for an emergency landing at Kavala airport, but was unsuccessful. The aircraft crashed 40 kilometers from the airfield and released the cargo, which exploded several times, and a strange smell around it. Among the remains was a white powder that the authorities had to analyze if it was toxic, for which they had to confine the neighbors throughout Sunday. Finally, last night the Greek authorities ruled out that the substance was dangerous to public health.
The experts from the Army and the Police are considering several possibilities: one that was plaster, since the mortar shells contain it; another that it was non-incendive phosphorus that is contained in the training ammunition and that when dispersed looks like plaster, and finally that it is remnants of the plastic propellant rings of mortars that, when broken, release a dense white powder.
After the accident there was also confusion about the destination of the plane, because at first it was thought that it was going to Amman (Jordan) when in fact it was only going to refuel there, something that the Jordanian government clarified before the Serbian. Serbian Defense Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic later detailed that the plane's cargo was manufactured by the Serbian defense industry, which had taken off from Nis, 240 kilometers south of Belgrade, and the buyer of the cargo was the Ministry Defense of Bangladesh.
Although Serbia has provided a detailed list of ammunition, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias has instructed the ambassador in Belgrade to "submit a complaint to the Serbian government" and ask for more details. Greek diplomatic sources pointed out that Athens wants to know why Belgrade did not immediately inform about the nature and destination of the cargo. And to avoid a repeat, Greece wants to "emphasize the need for the Greek authorities to be notified in advance about the nature of the cargo," a Greek government official told news agencies.
