Tourist helicopter crashes in Russian Far East

Published on :

A helicopter with three crew members and 13 passengers on board fell on Thursday in Lake Kuril in Russia’s Far East. Nine people were found alive and help is organizing to find the others.

A helicopter with 16 people on board, including 13 tourists, crashed Thursday August 12 in a lake on the volcanic peninsula of Kamchatka, in the Russian Far East.

The Mi-8 helicopter fell in Lake Kuril in the Kronotski Nature Reserve, the local government said in a statement. “There were on board 3 crew members and 13 passengers”, all “tourists”, he said. A child is among the passengers.

Forty rescuers from the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations and divers were dispatched to the scene, according to the same source.

At around 1 a.m. GMT, nine people were rescued, according to the local health ministry. These are seven passengers and two pilots, according to sources within the rescue services, quoted by Russian press agencies.

The fate of the remaining seven people was not immediately known, the search and rescue operation continuing according to the authorities.

Open investigation

According to rescuers quoted by TASS, the helicopter sank after the crash and is currently at a depth of 100 meters.

An investigation for violation of air safety and operating rules has been opened, the Russian Investigation Committee, responsible for the main investigations in the country, announced in a statement.

The Mi-8 helicopter of the local company Vitiaz-Aero was supposed to transport tourists on board to Khodutka, one of the volcanoes surrounding the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamtchatsky, according to the local branch of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. . Kamchatka is a gigantic territory with very little population but appreciated by tourists for its volcanoes and its wild nature.

According to the Vitiaz-Aero website, the company uses Mi-8P type helicopters to transport tourist groups. Soviet in design, this type of helicopter was manufactured between the 1960s and 1991. They can carry up to 24 people.

Frequent accidents

Russia, long known for its plane crashes, has significantly improved its aviation safety since the 2000s, as the country’s major airlines shifted from aging Soviet aircraft to more modern planes. But maintenance problems and sometimes lax compliance with safety rules are still a problem.

In early July, an airliner from a small local company crashed in Kamchatka, killing 19, after missing from radar shortly before landing in the coastal town of Palana.

With AFP