Bassem Zaazaa

DUBAI: Tragedy hit an ill-fated Lebanese family on Saturday when one of its members died in a helicopter crash in Italy, nearly two years after his wife perished during the Beirut blast.

Lebanese businessman Tarek Tayyah was reported to have been found among the seven bodies discovered by Italian rescuers, two days after their helicopter took off from Tuscany and disappeared from radar screens.

Tayyah is the husband of jewelry designer Hala Tayyah, who was killed during the Aug. 4, 2020 Beirut Port explosion that killed more than 200 people.

Lebanese media identified Tayyah and his countryman Chadi Kreidi among the seven crash victims.

The designer’s daughter Tamara Tayyah presented a pin, designed by her late mother, in the form of Lebanon’s map to

French President Emmanuel Macron when he visited the explosion site days after the blast.

Italian media said that the helicopter took off on Thursday from Lucca in Tuscany and was heading toward the northern city of Treviso when it was lost in bad weather over a remote area.

“The rescuers have found dead the seven passengers from the helicopter, four of Turkish and two of Lebanese nationality, who were on a business trip to Italy, as well as the Italian pilot,” the prefect’s office in the city of Modena said.

The helicopter was found in a mountainous area on the border between Tuscany and the Emilia Romagna region.

Kreidi was married and the father of four children. Co-workers, friends and family members of Kreidi and Tayyah took to social media asking users to pray for their safety after their aircraft went off the radar on Thursday.

An acquaintance of the Tayyah family told Arab News: “We were hopeful that the helicopter would be found. This is such a heartbreak . . . Tarek was such a joyful soul. The family has not yet recovered from Hala’s demise and now this tragedy.”

“God rest their souls in peace,” said the acquaintance, who requested anonymity due to family privacy.

Italian prosecutors have cordoned off the area as part of the investigation into the incident.

“We got the coordinates, we went to the site and found everything burnt. The helicopter is basically inside a valley, near a stream,” a rescuer said in a video posted on the Italian Air Force Twitter account.

The Turkish businessmen worked for Eczacibasi Consumer Products, a subsidiary of Turkish industrial group Eczacibasi.

They had been attending a paper technologies fair in Italy, the company said in a statement.

The ANSA news agency reported that it was owned by transport and aeronautic maintenance company Avio Helicopters, based in Thiene, in northern Italy.

Avio Helicopters was not immediately available for comment.

(With Reuters)