Before his tragic flight to Athens, which resulted in horror, the British tourist who was killed in Greece by a helicopter’s rotating rotor blade was captured in a picture smiling and posing with his pals on the party island of Mykonos.
Yesterday around 6:20 p.m. in Athens, Jack Fenton, 22, was struck when he went behind the Bell 407 helicopter as its engine was still running.
He had just returned from the popular tourist destination with three companions from a nearby public school.
Greek investigators claimed that despite ground crew warnings, the Oxford Brooks student went back onto the tarmac after safely disembarking to take a selfie and stumbled into a whirling blade.
Ground crew Salim Milat, Spyros Andriopoulos, and Fragkopanagos, the chief of training at Superior Air in Athens, were detained but later freed by police after they provided statements confirming that Jack was taken into the airport before he fled back outside.
If they instructed the passengers to leave the ship when it wasn’t safe, the trio might be charged with negligence or manslaughter.
However, Jack Stanton-Gleaves, 20, who was onboard the helicopter with pals James Yeabsley, 19, and Max Savage, 20, a former student at Bournemouth University, disputed the police and pilot’s account of what happened.
Jack Stanton-Gleaves told MailOnline that he and his family received no instructions upon exiting the helicopter and that no one accompanied them to the lounge.
Jack’s father, Robin Stanton-Gleaves, is the owner and chairman of Bromley FC, a National League team. They merely held the doors open for us.
We got off the chopper by ourselves, and nobody stopped Jack from heading to the back of the helicopter. None of us made it to the lounge in time to avoid the accident.
I’ve heard it said that Jack sprinted back to the helicopter while talking on the phone, but this is completely false.
He wasn’t on his phone, and I’m not sure why he turned to face the helicopter’s back.
Jack’s mother Victoria explained to MailOnline that the family is “totally saddened” by the loss of their “beautiful kid,” who attended the £36,000-per-year Sutton Valence boarding school in Maidstone.
Victoria spoke to MailOnline from her home in Tonbridge, Kent.
Earlier today, Ioannis Kandyllis, head of Greece’s commission for aviation accidents, who is looking into the incident, claimed that Jack disobeyed orders by returning to the helicopter while holding his phone to his ear.
All four of the passengers, according to him, had disembarked and were being led to a special lounge to wait for a private flight to London.
However, while they were in the lounge, the victim escaped and ran quickly back to the tarmac in search of the chopper.
Witnesses who spoke with us claimed that the man was resisting ground personnel by advancing quickly to the aeroplane while holding a phone to his ear “Stop! Stop!”
‘The horrible accident happened in a matter of seconds. It was terrible.
The 22-year-old is said to have died quickly despite emergency personnel being sent to the private heliport on the outskirts of the Greek capital.
Greek investigators will look for proof in the surveillance footage from the landing field.
They admitted that a number of other persons saw the tragedy from the lounge.
They have not yet been interviewed, but we will get in touch with them to gain further information as we try to put this puzzle together.
Today, Victoria, his mother, said: “We only learned what happened at 10 p.m. yesterday night. We are devastated beyond belief.
He was the most amazing young man.
“I believe the pilot is in prison, but based on the appearances, it was the worst accident possible.”
With a few of his pals, Jack had gone to Greece to celebrate the birthdays of a couple.
His relatives remained in Kent. Greece wasn’t where we went. Along with them was the father of one of his friends.
“Jack and his buddies took a helicopter without incident from Athens to Mykonos, so they decided to do it again and took a helicopter from Mykonos to Athens.
He had safely exited the aircraft when it touched down in Athens, but for some reason he returned to the helicopter’s rear, where the propeller’s backward motion killed him. Instant onset.
He had been out the previous night, but aside from water, he had nothing to drink yesterday. He was sober, as were his pals.
It was suggested that a subsequent chopper bringing Jack’s friend’s parents land at a different airport so they might avoid the horrific spectacle at the helipad.
In addition to giving detailed testimonies to the committee looking into the causes of the extraordinary tragedy, Mr. Kandyllis claimed that the pilot and the two ground crew members at the private heliport in Paiania, northeast of Athens, testified before a prosecutor.
According to Mr. Kandyllis, the Bell helicopter’s landing and the four passengers’ disembarkation complied with all safety rules.
According to aviation regulations, passengers must be escorted off the helicopter either after the rotors have totally stopped or when professional personnel is present.
In this instance, passengers disembarked through both the left and right doors. All of them were led to the seating lounge safely.
“After” is when the catastrophe happened.
In order to determine who the victim was speaking to at the time of the accident and the circumstances behind his decision to return to the aircraft, Mr. Kandyllis said they were anticipated to retrieve the victim’s cellphone.
The group was supposed to disembark at the Superior Air helipad and then be driven to Eleftherios Venizelos airport to board a private jet for their travel back to the UK.
Yeabsley, Savage, and Stanton-Gleaves, three of Jack’s buddies, flew back to the United Kingdom today from Athens’ Spata airport aboard a private plane.
All three are thought to have been Jack’s Sutton Valence high school classmates.
James Thomas, the headmaster of Sutton Valence, issued the following statement: “Our School was very sad to hear the dreadful news about Jack this morning.
He was a very well-liked member of the community, and we have given the family our condolences.
“All individuals impacted by the catastrophe are in our thoughts and prayers,” was stated.
Miguel Fenton, the father of Jack Fenton, oversees marketing, sales, and public relations at The Hop Farm, a 400-acre country park and tourist destination in Beltring, Kent, close to Tonbridge.
‘This is a personal situation, nothing to do with the business, and we have no comment,’ a representative for the Hop Farm told MailOnline.
The brewery owned the farm, which was formerly known as The Whitbread Hop Farm and has the biggest collection of oast houses in the world, up until 1997.
If the pilot doesn’t press a button to halt the rotors after about 50 seconds to stop them, they typically continue for around two minutes after the engine has been turned off.
The helicopter has no locks, and the only person in charge of keeping the passengers safe is the pilot. Pilots should be sure to give their passengers a comprehensive briefing to stay inside until all movement has stopped.
The Bell 407 helicopter type, to my knowledge, doesn’t lock from the inside, according to George Kaliakmanis, president of the Union of Police Officers of Southeast Attica.
The emphasis of the investigation will now be the pilot’s safety precautions. He told them to wait, did he not?
“The helicopter has two propellers.” There are two that run at 500 and 2500 spins per second, respectively.
Unless he presses a button that stops the propellers after 50 seconds, they continue to spin for nearly 2 minutes after the engine is turned off. Also keep in mind that due to the speed, the propellers are not visible.
According to sources, taking two helicopters the 115 miles would have cost more than £15,000.