Greek airborne commando dies 42 years after plane crash

A Greek airborne commando who was injured after he jumped out of a burning plane without a parachute in 1974 has died 42 years later as a result of his injuries, a Cypriot government official confirmed on Saturday.

Thanasis Zafiriou, then aged 20, was the only survivor from a crash of a military transport plane that was shot down by friendly fire while that was ferrying assistance to the Cypriot National Guard, which was facing pressure from a much larger Turkish force.

"It was with great distress that we learned about the death of Thanasis at a hospital in Salonica. Doctors told us that the cause of his death was directly related to his 1974 injuries," said Fotis Fotiou, a presidential commissioner in charge of humanitarian affairs.

Zafiriou was 62 when he died on Friday at a Greek military hospital where he was being treated with serious health problems.

His Noratlas transport aircraft was one of 15 that Greece used to send a commando force from Crete to Cyprus in what was described by many as a suicide mission.

They were to land at Nicosia Airport, which was under fire day and night by Turkish troops send to Cyprus on July 20, 1974, in response to a coup a week earlier by the military rulers of Greece.

Some of the planes took fire from National Guard anti-aircraft batteries which had not received notification of the operation and the one in which Zafiriou was caught fire and crashed a short distance from the runaway. Endit