Μake us preferred on Google Parliament Speaker Nikitas Kaklamanis said this week that lawmakers will take on the long-term financial support of the two children of the fighter pilots who died in Saturday’s crash at Tanagra. The arrangement still needs sign-off from Greece’s Court of Audit, the country’s top public finance watchdog, and is expected to be finalized within two months.
The Crash at Tanagra
Wing Commander Ioannis Blesias, 40, and Squadron Leader Dimitrios Petrou, 37, were killed on September 5 when their F-4E Phantom II went down near the Tanagra air base outside Athens during Athens Flying Week, an annual air show. The Hellenic Air Force has opened an investigation into the crash, which happened in the final seconds of a flight that lasted less than two minutes from takeoff to impact.
The two officers will be buried on Thursday, September 10. Blesias’s funeral is set for 10 a.m. at the Metropolitan Church of Saint Nicholas in Pyrgos, in the Ilia region of the Peloponnese. Petros will be laid to rest later that day, at 4:30 p.m., in Katsikas, near Ioannina in Epirus.
Support Already in Place for Coast Guard Officer’s Son
Kaklamanis said Parliament has completed the paperwork for another financial support arrangement. This concerns the child of a Hellenic Coast Guard officer who died while on duty in January 2026 in Astros, Kynourias, which is located in Arcadia, in the Peloponnese. Parliament will pay the child 10,000 euros a year until he turns 25, with the total amount expected to reach 170,000 euros.
Both cases fall under a standing Parliament program that supports the children of armed forces and security services personnel who die in the line of duty. The program began in 2010 for children of fallen military personnel and was extended in 2011 to cover all uniformed services. By the end of 2025, Parliament was providing financial support to 69 children of 44 personnel killed on duty, at an annual cost of about 600,000 euros.
Housing Project on Kastelorizo Tied to Liberation Anniversary
Kaklamanis also outlined a plan to renovate two houses on Kastelorizo, Greece’s easternmost inhabited island, also known as Megisti, so they can be used by doctors, nurses and teachers stationed there. The houses were donated to the local municipality by members of the Kastelorizian diaspora, and Parliament will cover the repairs, budgeted at a combined 150,000 euros. One property will house medical staff and the other will house teachers.
The decision to repair the houses, made together with Mayor N. Asvestis, was tied to Kaklamanis’s upcoming visit to the island on Sunday, September 13, for the 83rd anniversary of the raising of the Greek flag by the crew of the destroyer Kountouriotis and Kastelorizo’s residents, marking the first liberation of Greek territory after World War II.
