MOSCOW(Russia): A helicopter carrying 22 people crashed in the country’s Far East, Russia’s Emergencies Ministry announced. None of those on board survived, CNN reported, citing Russian state media TASS.
Seventeen bodies of those on board had been found by Sunday evening local time, the ministry said.
The helicopter, which had 19 passengers and three crew members on board, took off near the Vachkazhets volcano on Saturday and was headed to the village of Nikolaevka when it went down, the governor of the Kamchatka region, Vladimir Solodov, said Saturday on Telegram after the search began.
“The helicopter had taken off near the region’s Vachkazhets volcano, a tourist attraction in the remote Kamchatka Peninsula, and was heading towards the village of Nikolaevka,” Solodov said.
On Sunday, Solodov said that the wreckage of the helicopter, an Mi-8, had been found and that “we are doing everything possible to get specialists to the scene as quickly as we can.”
A rescue team found the wreckage on Sunday at an altitude of 900 metres, or almost 3,000 feet, not far from where the helicopter’s crew had last made contact, Russia’s ministry of emergencies said on Telegram.
According to the Ministry, the rescue crew found 17 bodies. The emergency service told the state news agency Tass that, based on the condition of the wreckage, no survivors were expected.
Further, the agency posted a photo and video on Telegram that showed shards of a helicopter lying on the side of a steep hill in a mountainous region.
According to the Kamchatka Department of Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring, fast-changing, harsh, and sub-Arctic weather often buffets the peninsula, and there was fog, drizzle, and poor visibility in the area on Saturday.
In 2021, another Mi-8 helicopter carrying tourists crashed into a deep volcanic crater lake in Kamchatka, killing eight people. (ANI)