A tourist helicopter carrying 22 passengers that crashed near a volcano over the weekend has been located in Russia’s Far East, officials said Sunday.
Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said the bodies of 17 people had been found and rescuers were continuing to search for the remaining occupants.
The helicopter, operated by Vityaz-Aero, was carrying tourists, Russian news agencies TASS and Interfax reported, and rescue workers said yesterday there were no survivors.
Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti said, citing the Emergencies Ministry, that the helicopter probably crashed due to poor visibility in bad weather conditions when rescuers spotted the helicopter’s wreckage on Sunday morning in a mountainous area.
“The wreckage of the missing helicopter was detected from the air. It is located at an altitude of 900 meters, close to the place where it was last detected,” the Emergencies Ministry wrote on Telegram.
Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said the bodies of 17 people have been found and rescuers are continuing to search for the remaining occupants.
The helicopter wreckage was found near a volcano in a mountainous area on Sunday morning.
Rescuers arrived at the scene of the devastating accident.
The Mi-8 helicopter took off near the Vachkazhets volcano in the Kamchatka region on Saturday but did not arrive at its destination as scheduled, Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency said in a statement earlier.
The agency said it believed there were 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 accidents have been frequent, as well as in neighboring countries and many other nations.
Russian media describe Vityaz-Aero as one of the largest airlines in the Kamchatka region.
Following 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 that transport tourists to the Kronotsky Reserve, a major tourist attraction that is home to Russia’s only geyser basin.
Kamchatka, a pristine peninsula with numerous volcanoes, is known for its rugged beauty and rich wildlife.
