The helicopter that crashed Wednesday morning in Ukraine – an accident that killed 15 people, including kindergarten children, Ukraine’s interior minister and his deputy – was a helicopter of the State Emergency Service, an Airbus SuperPuma H225 helicopter that is used in many countries . in the world and has a maintenance and overhaul center in Gimbava, an Airbus factory in Romania.

Airbus H225Photo: Airbus

The helicopter that crashed in the early hours of Wednesday – an Airbus H225 SuperPuma – was captured on video while flying at a very low altitude during a time when weather conditions were poor and the fog was very dense.

There is currently no information on the possible causes of the accidentwhether it was a technical problem, whether it was pilot error, a combination of factors, or perhaps even an incident of war.

H225 SuperPuma helicopter

Airbus H225 SuperPuma helicopters (formerly Eurocopter EC225 SuperPuma) are medium passenger helicopters that can be equipped for many types of missions, especially for response and emergency services.

The helicopter is relatively modern, was built and sold since 2000, was in service with the State Emergency Service in Ukraine, as part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, entered service in 2018, part of a general order. with 21 units

The Airbus H225 has a crew of two pilots and can carry up to 24 passengers. The plane is 19.5 meters long and about 5 meters high. It weighs about 5.3 tons and has two Turbomeca Makila 2A1 engines, each developing more than 2,300 horsepower.

The diameter of the rotor is 16.2 meters, the cruising speed of the helicopter is about 260 km/h, the flight height is about 5500-6000 meters.

In March 2022, Ukraine sent 14 helicopters for the work of Airbus Romania

In the spring of 2022, after the start of the war in Ukraine, at least 14 MIA helicopters from Kyiv flew over Romania and arrived at the Airbus base in Gimbava, Brasov, for maintenance and overhaul.

As the Romanian Ministry of Defense reported at the time, the planes were configured for civilian missions, but were not armed.

According to information released since then, at least the first nine helicopters that entered Romania at the time were H225 helicopters, so it is possible that the helicopter that crashed on Wednesday morning was also undergoing repairs in Romania.