Italian Minister Guido Crosetto broke his silence on the deadly crash that claimed four military lives during a peacekeeping exercise in Bosnia.
The CH-47 Chinook went down Thursday in a field near Gorice, in the nation’s Brcko District, during a European Union Force training mission. The aircraft, carrying fifteen people, struggled to maintain propulsion at low altitude before impact, according to dramatic video footage that captured the final moments.
Among the dead were two Army flight technicians: sergeants Simone Ruggia and Claudio Marchesi. Italian Red Cross Military Corps lieutenant Franco Adriano Zecchillo, an emergency response technician, also perished, alongside sergeant Laura Procacci — who La Repubblica noted was the first woman to achieve that rank in the corps.
“There are no words capable of filling such a great loss,” Crosetto said.
The eleven injured passengers were reported in stable condition following the incident. EU Force Bosnia and Herzegovina confirmed that no civilians were harmed in the crash and announced that a “thorough and complete” investigation was underway.
The doomed helicopter belonged to Italy’s military contribution to EUFOR, a 1,200-soldier mission operating under United Nations Security Council mandate. That force has overseen security and military provisions of the peace agreement that ended the Bosnian War since 1995.
The exercise was part of routine training conducted by the multinational peacekeeping operation, which maintains stability in a region still recovering from one of Europe’s deadliest conflicts since World War II. The 1995 Dayton Accords, which EUFOR helps enforce, split Bosnia and Herzegovina into two main entities following a war that killed an estimated 100,000 people.
The Brcko District, where the crash occurred, holds strategic significance as a self-governing administrative unit that remains under international supervision as part of the postwar framework. The district sits at the intersection of the two main Bosnian entities, making it a focal point for continued peacekeeping presence nearly three decades after the conflict’s end.
EUFOR continues its investigation into the mechanical failure that brought down the Chinook during what should have been a standard training flight.