Did not reach quite a bit

In Kamchatka, a helicopter with tourists crashed into a hill, the bodies of 17 dead were discovered, the searches of five more were suspended until Monday

A helicopter transporting tourists crashed in Kamchatka. His fragments were discovered on September 1 in the evening. Mi-8 did not reach the airfield a little and crashed into a hill in a dense fog. According to preliminary data, there were three crew members and 19 passengers on board.

On Saturday, August 31, the helicopter performed a commercial flight. He was supposed to take tourists from the airfield in the village of Nikolaevka to the mountain massif Vachkazhets and return with them back. The distance from Nikolaevka to the array is about 25 kilometers.

Already on the way back, at 16:10, the aircraft commander Denis Balmik told the dispatcher that after 5 minutes he was hoping to land at the airfield. He did not get in touch anymore.

The search and rescue operation began. It was complicated by rain and thick fog. Yesterday, on Saturday, the search was not brought. Today they continued, but it was possible to raise aviation into the sky only in the evening. In the area of ​​19 hours, Mi-8 fragments were seen on one of the hills. Rescuers arrived at the place of emergency, they still discovered 17 bodies of the dead. The searches of the rest were suspended until Monday morning.

According to the Telegram channel "Kamchatka Life", the organizer of the tour, which ended with a tragedy, was the company "Snow". One of its founders, Kirill Seregin, was among passengers.

Arseny Zamyatin, the financial director of the Russian Football Union, who, together with his wife, also spent a vacation in Vachkazhets. The full list of passengers was actively posted in messengers.

In the fact of the plane crash, the TFR opened a criminal case. So far, investigators are inclined to the fact that the cause of the accident was the crew error in conditions of poor visibility.

Belongs the crashed Mi-8 of the largest in the region of the Private Helicopter Company Vityaz Aero. Its founders are four businessmen: Igor Redkin, Igor Yevtushok, de En Tar and Valery Ponomarev. The latter is known in the political circles of Russia as one of the richest members of the Federation Council.

• The company's helicopters had previously got into an accident. In August 2021, for example, belonging to the Mi-8 Vityazhi, on board of which there were three crew members and 13 tourists, drowned in Lake Kuril. Then 8 people died, and another 8 - miraculously saved. After that, the airlines limited the operating certificate. However, after 6 months, the restriction was removed.