Crashed SMURD helicopter crew’s dead bodies carried to Romania

Chisinau, 3 June /MOLDPRES/-An ambulance of the Mobile Emergency Resuscitation and Extrication Service (SMURD) with the bodies of the four victims of the helicopter crash in Cantemir district, headed towards Romania this afternoon. A statement to this effect was made by the press officer of the Civil Protection and Emergency Situations Service (SPCSE), Diana Turcanu.

According to Turcanu, a SMURD from Romania arrived to Chisinau to take over the bodies of their dead colleagues. “All departments of the Interior Ministry and SMURD paramedics from Moldova accompanied the victims of the accident up the customs. Three of them will be carried to Iasi, and the fourth body will be brought to Bucharest,” Turcanu said.

Corpses were subjected to autopsy at the Legal Medicine Center over the past night. Also, “Romanian experts continue to carry out investigations at the place of the accident, to set up all the circumstances of the tragic aircraft accident,” Turcanu said.

According to some information, the crashed helicopter was not endowed with meteorological radar and was the only one functioning without such a device.

President Nicolae Timofti signed a decree on 2 June, declaring the day of 3 June as National Mourning Day. Thus, all state flags have been flown at half mast today all over Moldova, as well as by Moldova’s diplomatic and consular missions abroad.

More officials laid flowers today and lighted candles at the headquarters of the Romanian Embassy in Chisinau, to commemorate the victims of the tragic aircraft accident.

A SMURD helicopter crashed near village Haragîş, Cantemir on 2 June. All four crew members: pilot, co-pilot, doctor and paramedic died. The SMURD aircraft and medical personnel belonged to the department from Iasi.

(Reporter A. Plitoc, Editor A. Raileanu)