ATHENS (Reuters) - A Greek fire-fighting plane crashed while battling a blaze on the Ionian Sea island of Kefalonia Thursday, killing the pilot, authorities said.
The accident came three days after fire fighters managed to bring under control a major wildfire that destroyed 150 homes and thousands of hectares of forest and farmland near Athens.
"I'd like to express my devastation, our grief and my condolences for the loss of the pilot, who died while doing his duty selflessly and with self-sacrifice," Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis told reporters.
The plane crashed nine minutes after leaving the Kefalonia airport to fight a forest fire, officials said. Nobody else was on board.
While the conservative government was criticised for its response to the Aug 21-24 fires, the worst in Greece since a 2007 blaze killed 65 people, fire-fighters have won praise by all political parties for their tireless efforts.
Greek, Italian and French water-drop planes, hundreds of fire-fighters and soldiers battled the three-day inferno, which forced thousands to flee their homes and prompted a state of emergency in the east Attica region.
(Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou and Harry Papachristou; Editing by Victoria Main)
