Portugal tries to contain fatal fires, debunks plane crash
-
Share on Facebook
-
Share on Bluesky
-
Share on X
- Copy Link
LISBON, Portugal — Emergency services in Portugal said Tuesday they were making good progress in controlling a major wildfire that killed 64 people in the central area of the country, while officials said reports that a water-dropping plane had crashed in the area of the blaze turned out to be false.
Maria Jose Andre of Portugal’s Air Accident Office said her department was told by the Civil Protection Agency that a Canadair water-dropping plane had crashed on Tuesday while fighting the wildfire. Her office immediately sent a crash investigation team to the area.
But in a bizarre sequence of events, officials with the Portuguese government and the Civil Protection Agency said they could not confirm a crash had taken place. They said airborne search-and-rescue teams dispatched to look for wreckage didn’t find anything and that no firefighting planes were missing.
Civil Protection Agency spokesman Fausto Coutinho suggested that word of a plane crash was based on misleading information relayed from the fire area. He could not explain why Portugal’s Air Accident Office said it received a call from the agency notifying it of a plane crash, but said the confusing situation on the ground could have misled people.
