Greek fighter jet crash: at least 10 people killed at NATO military base in Spain

 
Smoke: the scene at the Albacete airbase (Picture: Twitter/@Gema_Covadonga)
Standard Reporter26 January 2015

At least ten people have died after a Greek fighter jet crashed into other planes on the ground at a military base used by NATO in Spain.

The F-16 jet crashed at the Los Llanos airbase in south eastern Spain at 3.30pm local time today.

Among the dead were two pilots, according to early reports. One of the pilots is believed to have performed a wrong manoeuvre during takeoff, causing the jet to crash.

Most of the victims were believed to be foreigners, a Spanish Defence Ministry official said.

13 other people were injured in the accident, officials said.

Television footage from the scene showed emergency crews battling to put out a fire caused by the crash.

It showed flames billowing and a plume of black smoke where the plane crashed.

The Spanish Defence Ministry tweeted: "A Greek F-16 crashes soon after taking off during a NATO exercise in Spain's 'Los Llanos' (Albacete) airbase."

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he was "deeply saddened by the crash of a Greek fighter jet at the Los Llanos base in Spain, which has caused many casualties".

The Spanish ministry said the jet that crashed was taking part in a Nato training exercise called the Tactical Leadership Program.

According to a US Air Force Website, TLP was formed in 1978 by Nato's Central Region air forces to advance their tactical capabilities and produce tactics, techniques and procedures that improve multi-national tactical air operations.

The first TLP course was located at Fuerstenfeldbruck Air Base, Germany. It has been based at the Spanish base since June 2009.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Sign up you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy notice .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT