Russian Copter Crashes, Kills 85
Mon Aug 19, 5:17 PM ET
By STEVE GUTTERMAN, Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW (AP) - A Russian transport helicopter jammed with troops crashed in Chechnya on Monday, and Russian news agencies said as many as 85 servicemen were killed. Russian officials said they did not know how many were killed or if the aircraft was shot down by rebels.

Reporting an engine on fire, the pilot wanted to make an emergency landing near Russias front-line base for its battle with separatist rebels, one Russian official said.

There were at least 132 people aboard the Mi-26, described as the worlds largest helicopter, when it crashed near the Russian military headquarters at Khankala outside Chechnyas capital of Grozny, said Col. Boris Podoprigora, the deputy commander of Russian troops in Chechnya.

Podoprigora said 32 survivors were hospitalized and doctors were treating other wounded people at the scene.

He did not give a death toll.

Later, the Interfax news agency, citing an unidentified source at the military headquarters, reported that 142 people were on board the helicopter.

Sergei Fridinsky, a deputy prosecutor general, told Interfax dozens were dead and wounded, while Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov offered his condolences to relatives of the servicemen killed. His statement, issued through the Defense Ministry, did not provide a death toll.

Earlier, Interfax reported that about 80 servicemen were killed, citing a source at military headquarters. ITAR-Tass, also citing a source there, put the death toll at 85.

Fridinsky said investigators were examining two possible causes of the crash: the helicopter was shot down by rebels or it suffered a technical problem.

A high-ranking source at the military headquarters said authorities believed it was more likely a technical problem, but nothing was being ruled out.

The head of the Defense Ministry press office, Nikolai Deryabin, told ORT state television the pilot requested permission to make an emergency landing because an engine was on fire.

Fridinsky said the helicopter fell onto a minefield. Podoprigora could not confirm that, but he said rescuers were working in difficult conditions at the site, which Russian television networks said was cordoned off.

Podoprigora said the Mi-26 is designed to carry 82 people. Officials did not say why there were 127 servicemen aboard the flight from a military base at Mozdok in neighboring Ingushetia. Authorities said all five crew members survived.

President Vladimir Putin ordered a thorough investigation into the crash, which ITAR-Tass said was the worst in Russian army history.

The crash came amid a spate of rebel actions against Russian forces in Chechnya, including attacks last week in the southwest that killed nine servicemen and five civilians.

Some analysts surmised that rebels intensified their actions to underscore the need for the Russian government to enter peace negotiations. A Chechen rebel representative met with a former head of Russias Security Council in Geneva last week to discuss restarting talks stalled since last year.

Russias government maintains that the war it launched in the breakaway Caucasus Mountain republic in fall 1999 is all but over, with just isolated groups of rebels holding out. However, Russian soldiers are killed almost every day by rebel attacks that sap military manpower and morale.

In September 2001, two generals and 11 other Russian servicemen died when their helicopter was shot down by a shoulder-fired missile shortly after takeoff from Grozny.

Another helicopter, an Mi-8 carrying two top Interior Ministry officials and 12 other people, crashed in Chechnya in January. The Kremlin said that crash was an accident, but an official with the Moscow-appointed civilian administration for Chechnya said investigators found fragments of the helicopter suggesting it also was shot down with a missile.

Military helicopter crashes are fairly common in Russia, where aging craft are often used to ferry soldiers or civilians to remote areas hard to reach by road, rail or plane.

(法新社莫斯科電) 調查人員證實，車臣叛軍擊落一架俄羅斯軍用直昇機，造成一百一十四名軍人喪生，這是車臣戰事三十五個月來最嚴重的傷亡，導致俄羅斯一位高階將領被停職。

俄羅斯國防部長伊凡諾夫二十日前往車臣首府格羅茲尼東郊的墜機地點視查，他面色凝重的接受電視訪問說：「最新消息證實，這架墜毀的直昇機上有一百四十七人，有三十三人生還。」

伊凡諾夫立即停止負責俄羅斯空軍的蘇聯時期戰爭英雄巴夫洛夫的職務，因為他未遵循安全程序下令停止所有巨型MI-26直昇機飛越車臣上空。

同時，國際傳真社引述俄羅斯軍事指揮部的說法指出，調查人員在出事地點附近找到叛軍使用的史特瑞拉飛彈發射器，因而摒除稍早推論因為引擎故障導致墜機的說法。

俄羅斯總統蒲亭形容這次墜機事件為「大災難」，宣布二十二日為全國追悼日。

俄羅斯工商日報描述墜機現場的景象既恐怖又悲慘，生還者奮力破窗逃避飛機內令人窒息的空氣，好不容易逃出去卻被地雷炸死。

目擊者告訴記者說：「根本沒辦法搶救，墜機地點四處遍布地雷，必須先掃雷才行。」