US Black Hawk chopper makes emergency landing in Bucharest

A US Black Hawk helicopter training in Romania was forced to make an emergency landing at a busy intersection in Bucharest due to a technical malfunction, authorities said, adding there were no reports of casualties.

The UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, one of a group of six that were doing a rehearsal flight over Bucharest, reported a technical malfunction on Thursday that forced it into an emergency landing, Xinhua news agency quoted Constantin Spinu, spokesperson for Romania's Ministry of National Defence, as saying.

"There are no victims, the crew is in very good condition," said Spinu, adding that two lamp-posts were knocked over and two cars were hit in the process.

Meanwhile, Claudiu Costea, spokesman of the Traffic Police, said personnel were prompt to intervene in order to block traffic in Charles de Gaulle Square, so as to facilitate the landing of the U.S. helicopter.

"If they hadn't done so, we may have had a tragedy," said the spokesman.

Soon after the incident, the Defence Ministry ordered to cancel the helicopter for the overfly ceremony dedicated to the completion of the Romanian military mission in Afghanistan.


"The overfly part for both the National Aviation Day on July 20 and the ceremony at the Triumphal Arc on July 21, which is generated by ending the mission in Afghanistan, were canceled by order of the Minister of National Defence, so the ceremonies will be held without the flight of the aircraft," said Spinu.

Romania started to send troops to Afghanistan in early 2002, and its last detachment, consisting of 140 soldiers, returned home at the end of June.

In this 19-year period, 27 Romanian soldiers lost their lives and over 200 were injured in the operations in Afghanistan, where a total of 32,000 Romanian soldiers were sent.-IANS