An F-4 Phantom Went Down at Tanagra in Front of Thousands. Both Pilots Were Killed.

ATHENS — A Hellenic Air Force F-4 Phantom crashed during a low-altitude maneuver at an air show north of Athens on Saturday, killing both pilots aboard, Greek officials said. Thousands of spectators were at Tanagra air force base, about 60 kilometers — roughly 40 miles — north of the capital, for the annual Athens Flying Week display. None of them were hurt.

The twin-seat jet went down inside the base perimeter and the wreckage set the surrounding ground alight, sending a column of black smoke over the airfield that was visible from the viewing area and from surrounding towns. Eleven water-dropping aircraft and helicopters joined 85 firefighters to contain the blaze, which stayed well away from the crowd. Air force officials said the bodies of the two crew members were recovered during a rescue operation that was slowed in its early stages by the fire.

"The sense of grief is widespread, and our thoughts are with the families of the two pilots we lost," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said. "It is a reminder of the daily danger faced by Greece's aviators, who remain on constant standby to protect Greece's skies."

The rest of the program was called off. Athens Flying Week is one of the larger aviation events in southeastern Europe, drawing display teams from across NATO and tens of thousands of visitors across its weekend schedule, and it has run at Tanagra for years without a fatal accident.

Greece is one of the last operators of the F-4 anywhere. The Phantom first flew in 1958 and entered U.S. service in 1961, and it was the backbone of American air power over Vietnam before being retired from front-line U.S. duty decades ago. The Hellenic Air Force has flown the type since the 1970s and put a portion of its fleet through an avionics and structural upgrade in the late 1990s and early 2000s, extending the airframes' lives into a fifth decade. Greek squadrons still use them for air-to-ground and reconnaissance work while the service transitions to F-16 Vipers and the F-35s Athens has on order.

Low-level display flying leaves almost no margin. Aerobatic routines at air shows are flown close to the ground, close to the aircraft's structural and aerodynamic limits, and with very little altitude available to recover from a mistake or a mechanical failure. Investigators from the air force's aviation safety directorate will examine the wreckage, the flight data and the maintenance records for the aircraft, a process that in Greece typically takes months.

The crash comes during a punishing stretch for Greek aviation. In August, two firefighting helicopters collided in midair over a wildfire in the country's south, and three firefighters died on a single day in late July as Europe's burned acreage ran at roughly triple its normal level for the season.