EU peacekeeping helicopter crash in Bosnia kills four

An Italian Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter serving with the European Union peacekeeping force in Bosnia and Herzegovina crashed during routine training near Brčko on Thursday, killing four people and injuring the other 11 aboard. Italy’s Defence Ministry said two of those killed were army personnel and two served with the Italian Red Cross’s Volunteer Military Corps.

EUFOR said the injured were receiving medical care and were in stable condition; Italy’s ministry said none was in life-threatening condition. No civilians were hurt and no civilian property or vehicles were damaged, the mission said. Local images showed the transport helicopter overturned and extensively broken on grass near the village of Gorice, but those images do not establish why it came down.

A full investigation is under way, and neither EUFOR nor Italian authorities had announced a cause at publication. Operation Althea has operated in Bosnia since taking over from NATO in 2004. Its roughly 1,200 personnel help maintain security and oversee military provisions of the Dayton agreement that ended the 1992–95 war. The crash is therefore an operational accident involving a peacekeeping mission, not evidence of renewed hostilities in Bosnia.