Two Pilots Killed as a Light Aircraft Crashes Beside a Flying Club Airstrip in Northern Greece

Two pilots were killed on Sunday, October 18, 2026, when a light single-engine aircraft crashed into a dry riverbed next to the Pieria Aero Club’s airstrip at Kontariotissa, in northern Greece. The Hellenic Fire Service found both men outside the wreckage, unconscious, and they were later pronounced dead at the hospital in Katerini.

The aircraft’s type and registration have not been released, and the cause of the crash is unknown.

What the Fire Service found

The Fire Service’s operations center was alerted at about 1:50 p.m. local time (10:50 GMT). It sent eight firefighters with four vehicles to the scene.

According to the Fire Service, the aircraft lay in a riverbed with no water in it, close to the club’s runway near the village of Karyotis. Kontariotissa itself sits about 6 miles (9 km) south of Katerini, the regional capital of Pieria.

Firefighters carried the two men out of the riverbed to a safe spot and handed them to ambulance crews from EKAB, Greece’s National Emergency Aid Center. They were taken to Katerini hospital, where their deaths were confirmed.

No fire broke out after the crash, the Fire Service said, as reported by ProtoThema. The Greek aviation magazine Ptisi described the strip as an unpaved runway used by the local flying club.

Two experienced local pilots

Greek public broadcaster ERT reported that the two men, aged 41 and 59, were both pilots. It described the 41-year-old as an experienced pilot and a former vice president of the aero club who had reportedly also flown Canadair firefighting aircraft.

The daily Ta Nea gave the older man’s age as 58 and said he was a friend who often flew with the younger pilot.

The first reports, published before the men were identified, put both occupants between 55 and 60. Neither man has been officially named.

Greek television channel Star, as reported by Documento, said the aircraft was a privately owned light plane and appeared to have come down shortly before landing.

The 41-year-old’s father told a Greek television program, as quoted by Ta Nea, that his son owned two small aircraft and that something went wrong at the airfield as the aircraft came in to land. Neither account has been confirmed by the authorities, and it is not known whether the crashed aircraft was one of his.

How Greece investigates a light aircraft crash

ERT reported that the police have taken over the case and will examine its causes. That is the judicial track, the one that deals with any question of responsibility.

The safety investigation is a different process. In Greece it belongs to HARSIA, known in Greek as EODASAAM, a body set up under Law 5014/2023 that took over air and rail accident investigation from the former Air Accident Investigation and Aviation Safety Board (AAIASB). None of the reports published on October 18 said whether it has opened a case on the Pieria crash.

That work is governed by EU Regulation 996/2010, whose only aim is to prevent future accidents, never to assign blame or liability, and which keeps the safety investigation separate from any judicial proceedings. It requires a safety investigation of every accident involving most civil aircraft, but leaves it to each country to decide for some light categories, such as many microlight and amateur-built aircraft.

So the aircraft’s identity matters for more than the headline. Once its type and registration are known, it will be clearer which rules apply and whether a full safety report can be expected.

The regulation asks for a final report, and if that cannot be published within 12 months, an interim statement on each anniversary. In practice, light aircraft reports in Greece can take years: the AAIASB’s final report on a fatal 2017 microlight crash in Rhodope was signed in November 2022, more than five years later.

Clubs like Pieria’s are where much of general aviation lives: private and recreational flying, far from the airline world. The crash is the latest in a difficult season for Greek aviation, after an F-4 Phantom crash at Athens Flying Week killed two Hellenic Air Force pilots on September 5.