A tourist helicopter carrying 22 passengers crashed over the weekend near a volcano in Russia’s far east, officials said Sunday.
The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said the bodies of 17 people had been found and rescuers were still searching for the remaining occupants.
The helicopter, operated by Vityaz-Aero, was carrying tourists, Russian news agencies TASS and Interfax reported. The rescue team said yesterday that there were no survivors.
Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti reported, citing the Emergency Situations Ministry, that the helicopter likely crashed due to poor visibility and bad weather conditions. Rescuers spotted the remains of the helicopter in a hilly area on Sunday morning.
“The wreckage of the previously disappeared helicopter was discovered from the air. It is located at an altitude of 2,950 feet, near the place where it was last contacted,” the Emergency Situations Ministry wrote on Telegram.
The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said the bodies of 17 people had been found and rescuers were still searching for the remaining residents.
The remains of the helicopter were found Sunday morning near a volcano in a hilly area
Rescue workers arrived at the scene of the devastating crash
The Mi-8 helicopter took off near the Vachkazhets volcano in the Kamchatka region on Saturday, but did not arrive at its destination on the scheduled date, Russia’s Federal Aviation Agency said in a statement earlier.
According to the agency, there were believed to be 19 passengers and three crew members on board.
The Mi-8 is a twin-engine helicopter designed in the 1960s. It is widely used in Russia, where crashes are common, but also in neighboring countries and many other countries.
Russian media describe Vityaz-Aero as one of the largest airlines in the Kamchatka region.
After a helicopter crash in 2021 that killed eight people, authorities banned the company from carrying passengers pending an investigation into a possible violation of flight safety rules.
Vityaz-Aero is the largest of several local airlines flying tourists to the Kronotsky Reserve, a top tourist attraction with Russia’s only geyser basin.
Kamchatka, a pristine peninsula with numerous volcanoes, is known for its rugged beauty and rich flora and fauna.
