Six dead as Mi-8 helicopter crashes in Khabarovsk, Russia

Sputnik
Wed, 11 Apr 2018 08:33 UTC

© Sputnik/ Igor Ageenko

Mi-8 helicopter

Six people were killed on Wednesday in a crash of a Mi-8 helicopter in the Russian Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk, a source in local emergencies services told Sputnik.

"At 11:30 a.m. [1:30 GMT] the crisis management center of the Russian Emergencies Ministry at the Khabarovsk Territory... received information that the Mi-8 helicopter made a hard landing... According to preliminary information six people were aboard. The constructions have not been affected by the incident," the regional department of the Russian Emergencies Ministry said in a statement.

A spokesperson of the Russian Investigative Committee told Sputnik that the investigators had already been already deployed to the scene.

"The helicopter crashed in the city at the Antennaya street. According to preliminary information, all six people aboard the aircraft are dead," the in the regional emergencies services said.

The chief doctor of the local hospital told Sputnik that no one survived in the accident, while Aleksander Vitko, the health minister of the Khabarovsk Territory, told Sputnik that the medical workers had been engaged in identification of victims. Russia's Investigative Committee also confirmed that all six people aboard were killed.

Comment: The helicopter that crashed in the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk had six crew members on board, none of them survived, the Far Eastern transport investigation department of the Russian Investigative Committee said on Wednesday.

A criminal case was launched into the violation of air transport safety rules.

"The investigation looks into three major versions of the accident: weather conditions, technical malfunction or pilot error," the department said in a statement.