McDermott Aviation, of Queensland, deployed 15 helicopters to Greece for the 2026 season — 11 Bell 214ST Super Transporters and four Bell 214B Big Lifters — across 11 bases from Araxos to Crete and Rhodes, through October 31. [1] Peak contract is fourteen aircraft on station and about 100 rotating specialists. It is the company's seventh consecutive Greek summer. It owns the Bell 214B and 214ST type certificates. [1] John McDermott called the deployment a long-term commitment to large-scale fire operations. [1]

Sunday's midair at Psatha involved two Bell 214STs, N746H and N511EV, on that contract. [2] ABC News, in the first hours, said the owner was not immediately disclosed. [3] The May trade press had already published the fleet map and the eleven-base grid.

This is not a mystery lessor. It is Australia's largest private helicopter operator selling heavy-lift hours to a state whose own fleet cannot cover a wind-driven Attica fire and a Cretan week in the same season. Over the past three Greek seasons those aircraft flew 2,500 to 4,500 hours a year. [1] The business story is the contract. The bodies on that Sunday hillside are still the invoice.

-- THEO KAPLAN, San Francisco