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Twenty people died yesterday in a helicopter crash in Siberia, the Itar-Tass news agency reported, citing a regional deputy premier. |
Ten children were believed to be among the victims.
The Mi-8 helicopter carrying three crew members and 25 passengers crashed into a mountainside in the republic of Yakutia because of bad weather, media reports said.
“Three crew members and a woman with a child survived,” said Yakutia’s deputy prime minister, Anatoly Skrybykin.
However, a spokeswoman for the emergency situations ministry in Moscow said the casualties could not be confirmed because rescue workers had been unable to reach the accident site.
The accident apparently happened when the Polar Airlines helicopter performed a hard landing in poor weather, 45km northwest of the small town of Deputatsky in Yakutia.
The first deputy head of the Interstate Aviation Committee, Alexander Filatov, told AFP that he had been notified of the death toll through a telegramme from aviation officials in Yakutia, who were able to communicate with the crew after the crash.
But a spokeswoman for the emergencies ministry, Irina Rossius, said it could not give a toll until rescue teams were on the ground. Some 240 rescuers and eight aircraft have been dispatched to the area.
A spokesman for the regional government in Yakutia, Afanasy Yegorov, said the crash site was so hard to reach that the rescue teams had to land their aircraft 30km away and continue their journey on all-terrain vehicles.
He too declined to give casualty figures. “Don’t be in a hurry to bury the people,” he told AFP, adding that he personally knew some of the passengers.
He said the helicopter was performing a regular passenger flight from the town of Deputatsky to the town of Kazachye and was flying over a mountain range when a downward stream of air pushed it to the ground.
With weather conditions in the area rapidly deteriorating, the emergencies ministry said another MI-8 helicopter flying from the town of Tiksi was ordered to fly back.
But a plane carrying rescue workers and medics has already been able to land in the town of Deputatsky, it added.
Russia’s aviation industry remains blighted by repeated accidents involving its ageing fleet of planes and helicopters.
Poor maintenance and lax safety precautions are also often blamed for frequent accidents.
