The aeronautical tragedy in which an emergency rescue helicopter crashed in the Siutghiol lake, near the Romanian Black Sea resort of Mamaia, killing all four crew members, will be investigated by military prosecutors of the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice, Romania’s General Prosecutor has decided.

The investigation is a complex one, as there are several things that will be investigated related to this crash. The prosecutors have already started an investigation in rem (of the facts) for manslaughter and one for the failure to comply with labour safety rules, according to Digi 24 news station.

The prosecutors will investigate both the causes of the crash and the way emergency response units conducted the rescue operations. Investigators will want to find out why the rescuers’ motor boat didn’t start and how well were the rescuers trained for such missions. The response time for calls to the emergency number 112 will also be verified.

The coroner’s report showed that the pilot and the co-pilot of the SMURD helicopter have drowned, while in the doctor’s case, the causes of death were hypothermia and the injuries suffered due to the accident, according to Digi 24. This comes to support the accounts from eye witnesses who said that the four crew members survived the crash.

The crash was first reported at the 112 emergency number at 16:11, and the first intervention boat was deployed at the scene at 16:31, but it didn’t start, wo the rescuers had to row it to the place where the helicopter crashed, which was 500 meters away from shore. The first victim, the doctor, was recovered at 16:45, 34 minutes after the crash. She was brought to shore and resuscitated, but died later at the hospital, according to Mediafax.

The second victim, the co-pilot, was found at 21:18, more than five hour after the crash. The pilot was found at 23:50 and the fourth crew member, the nurse, was located at 3:30. The divers who were deployed at the scene of the crash said the low visibility in the water made the intervention very difficult. The Siutghiol lake is about six meters deep and the water temperature was about 2 degrees.

The Constanta county prefect was dismissed for the way he coordinated the rescue operations in this case. The commander of the emergency situations inspectorate (ISU) in Constanta was also dismissed.

The prosecutors of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) have also started an investigation on the helicopter purchase by the Constanta County Council. The authorities had bought the helicopter from Eurocopter, for EUR 5 million, which was funded from EU funds. The helicopter, which was almost new, was transferred to the emergency rescue unit SMURD in November 2014.

editor@romania-insider.com