Russia's EMERCOM plane finished fighting fires in Greece

Photo credit: Pavel Adzhigildyaev / commons.wikimedia.org (CC-BY-SA-3.0)

The Russian Be-200ES plane completed work on extinguishing fires in Greece, RIA Novosti reports. The plane spent almost 200 hours in the air, dumping more than 5,000 tons of water on the fires.

The aircraft made sorties even in high turbulence and in mountainous terrain. The Greek authorities thanked Russian pilots and engineers for their help.

The Russian Be-200 firefighting aircraft spent over a month in Greece. According to local media outlets, Russia saved the Greek capital from the fire, and the main credit for the fact that Athens was able to avoid the disaster belongs to this particular plane. Journalists note that this is the only plane that can fly in extreme conditions, when the temperature reaches 43 degrees. But due to the fact that the fire situation was very serious and the fire threatened to spread to urban infrastructure, Russian pilots flew out daily at temperatures up to 45 degrees.

For its high performance, the Greek media called the plabe "Russian beast".

Russkiy Mir