Alexander Cromie and Marie Ebert were supposed to be starting their lives together on the island of Sifnos. Instead, their private helicopter went down right in front of the locals, leaving almost nothing behind but a terrible engine noise and a lot of questions.
You book a private helicopter to skip the ferry and get to your honeymoon a little faster. It is supposed to be the easiest, most luxurious part of the trip. You can practically see the landing pad. And then, in the final seconds, everything just goes wrong.
On Monday evening, a young British couple and their pilot were killed when their helicopter crashed on the Greek island of Sifnos. The couple, Alexander Cromie and Marie Ebert, had taken the short flight from a village near Athens.
They were just meters away from touching down.
Sifnos is a quiet, popular holiday spot. People living near the helipad heard the aircraft coming in. But it did not sound right. Sifnos Deputy Mayor Manolis Foundoulakis rushed to the scene and told local news what the witnesses were saying.
They described a “bizarre engine noise coming from the aircraft” right before it hit the ground.
The impact sparked a massive fire. By the time firefighters got the flames under control, the machine was completely destroyed. Foundoulakis did not sugarcoat what he saw in the dirt. He told reporters there was almost “nothing left” of the aircraft.
Rescue workers found two of the victims trapped in the twisted metal. The third was thrown a short distance away.
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An investigation is now trying to figure out why a routine island hop turned into a disaster at the very last second. The weather was fine. The destination was right there.
Honeymoons are supposed to be the start of a long story. For this young couple, the trip ended in a fiery field just a few feet from where they were supposed to land. Now, investigators have to dig through the ashes to figure out what that strange engine noise really meant.
