Italian Army CH-47 Chinook Crashes Near Brčko in Bosnia, Killing Four

An Italian Army CH-47 Chinook flying for the European Union’s EUFOR Althea force crashed near Brčko in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina on Thursday, October 29, 2026. Italy’s Ministry of Defence said four of the 15 people on board were killed and the other 11 were injured.

The helicopter came down in the Gorice area near Brčko while conducting routine training, according to EUFOR’s press release. The cause has not been established.

What the official statements say

The ministry first confirmed the crash in a post on X, saying only that a CH 47 on the EUFOR Althea operation had gone down that afternoon and that rescuers had responded. It gave no casualty figures at that point, pending clearer information on the crew’s condition.

In a second statement that evening, the ministry said the four dead were two Italian Army soldiers and two members of the Italian Red Cross’s volunteer military corps. It said none of the 11 injured was in danger of losing their life, and that an Italian medical team was being sent to support them.

The ministry added that it released the details only after informing the families of those killed. Defence Minister Guido Crosetto offered his condolences to the families and said Italy owed its gratitude to the service members who died serving the country.

EUFOR’s own statement gives the same toll: four personnel lost and 11 injured, all in stable condition and being treated in Brčko. Bosnian emergency services and EUFOR Liaison and Observation Team units recovered the personnel at the scene, the force said.

EUFOR also said no civilians were hurt and no civilian property, infrastructure or vehicles were damaged. It asked the public not to speculate about the identities or nationalities of the people involved.

Early figures from Bosnia varied before the official statements. The Brčko mayor put the toll at four dead and 11 injured, as Gazzetta del Sud reported, while other local reports cited three dead and 12 injured, Aviacionline noted.

The figures in this article are the first official ones, given on the day of the crash. EUFOR said it would release more information once it is verified.

🇧🇦🇮🇹 An Italian Army CH-47 has just crashed in northeastern Bosnia, near Brčko. Unofficial reports indicate that three crew members have died. https://t.co/eF7THy9VLz

— GOLDZEN 🇧🇦 (@GOLDZEN3) October 29, 2026

The aircraft and the mission

Neither official statement gave the variant or the serial. The Aviationist identified it as a CH-47F, and ItaMilRadar reported it as ICH-47F MM81782, one of two Chinooks deployed to Bosnia for the mission.

The ICH-47F is Italy’s own build of the Boeing CH-47F Chinook, the tandem-rotor heavy-lift helicopter. The Italian Army ordered 16, with final assembly by AgustaWestland (now Leonardo) at Vergiate and the fuselage built by Boeing in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania.

The first two were handed over in October 2014, to replace CH-47C Chinooks that had served since 1973. AgustaWestland said at the time that the fleet would be flown by the Army Aviation’s 1st Regiment “Antares” at Viterbo, north of Rome.

The Italian version adds secure communications, a self-protection suite and a datalink, and has a maximum weight of 23 metric tons (about 50,700 pounds). Its main job is moving troops and equipment, carried inside or slung under the cargo hook, and it can carry 32 equipped soldiers.

Chinooks are not new to Bosnia for Italy: the regiment’s helicopters supported earlier international missions there in the late 1990s. The CH-47F is still being delivered elsewhere: Egypt took its first CH-47Fs this year.

EUFOR Althea has helped maintain security in Bosnia since 2004, when it took over from NATO, under a UN Security Council mandate. It has about 1,200 troops and oversees the military side of the agreement that ended the 1992 to 1995 war.

EUFOR says it is conducting a thorough and complete investigation, and the ministry says its own inquiry has begun. Until either publishes findings, any cause offered for this crash is speculation. For how the Chinook’s heavy-lift role differs from other rotorcraft, see our guide to types of military helicopters.