Turkish UH-1H Helicopter Crashes During Training Flight, Killing Six

9 December, 2024 Wreckage of a crashed Turkish Air Force Bell UH-1H helicopter.

09.12.2024. Turkey. Source: Avia News

A Bell UH-1H Iroquois helicopter carrying military personnel and a brigadier general crashed in Turkey. The Turkish Defense Ministry stated that six soldiers were killed in the crash. Initially, four were reported dead, later five dead and one injured, but it soon became clear that all were killed in the crash.

It happened during a training flight of two helicopters of the Army Aviation School. They collided in the air in the Keciborlu district of Isparta.

Turkish military personnel killed in plane crash. Source: Turkish Ministry of Defense

As a result, one of the helicopters crashed.

It was carrying six military, one of whom was a brigadier general. The governor of the city told TRT News that the second helicopter managed to land. The Turkish Air Force does not have many American Bell UH-1H Iroquois helicopters left.

According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which publishes The Military Balance, Turkey has 15 of these helicopters in service in 2020.

Bell UN-1H Iroquois helicopter of the Turkish Air Force. Source: Turkish Ministry of Defense

The Bell UH-1 is one of the most famous and mass-produced helicopters in the history of helicopter construction. It has been mass-produced since 1960.

However, these machines are already quite outdated and need to be written off or deeply modernized.

Crashed UH-1H helicopter of Bosnia and Herzegovina. August 2024.

Photo: Ministry of Defense of Bosnia and Herzegovina

In August, a crashed UH-1H military helicopter that had fallen during a training exercise was pulled out of a lake in southern Bosnia and Herzegovina.