114 died on helicopter says reports

At least 114 servicemen were killed when the world’s biggest helicopter, probably carrying almost double its permitted load, crashed outside a Russian base in Chechnya, state television reported today.

Yesterday’s crash outside the Russian military headquarters of Khankala, near the Chechen capital Grozny, was Russia’s biggest military air disaster, media said.

RTR state television, citing the military’s headquarters in the region, said there were 147 people aboard the huge Mi-26 helicopter, though previous estimates of the number of passengers varied widely.

Colonel Boris Podoprigora, deputy commander of Russian troops in Chechnya, said that the aircraft was carrying 132 servicemen from Mozdok, a regional military base, to Khankala.

Initially Russian officials said no one had been killed but news agency reports put the death toll at least 85.

The twin engined helicopter was designed to carry 85 combat troops.

The Interfax news agency quoted a source close to investigators as saying that there were 156 names on the flight manifest, including the five-member crew.

All five crewmen survived the crash. The passengers were a mix of officers, conscripts and contract soldiers returning from leave or travelling to Chechnya to relieve units that were to have been rotated out of the region, state television reported.

The helicopter’s flight data recorders were found and were taken to the nearby Mozdok air base for examination, Interfax said.

The recorders should shed light on whether the helicopter experienced a technical malfunction or was shot down, as the Chechen rebels claimed.

Officials did not say why so many servicemen were on the flight. However, the Kommersant newspaper reported that Mozdok had suffered a spell of bad weather in recent days, with rain and heavy fog, and that flights had been irregular in any case because of inadequate supplies of fuel and spare parts.

Overcrowded flights, carrying up to 110 people instead of the 85 for which the helicopter was built, in addition to cargo, were the norm, Kommersant said.

The paper described a horrendous scene of servicemen clambering out of the helicopter, only to set off explosions in the minefield planted to prevent rebel incursions into Khankala.

First-aid workers had to call in sappers to clear a path to the burning helicopter before they could set to work.

However, Podoprigora denied that the helicopter had landed in a minefield.

"The helicopter fell and caught fire and, according to information I have, nobody was blown up by mines," he said.

The pilot reported hearing a thump on the right side of the helicopter, and monitoring equipment in the cockpit signalled a fire, Russian media reported.

Soldiers on the ground and pilots in an accompanying helicopter said they saw ground fire, media reported - backing up the rebel claim that their missile had brought down the helicopter - and the pilot requested permission to perform an emergency landing because of a fire in the right engine.

The helicopter fell from a height of 660 feet, and missed the Tarmac at Khankala by 990 feet, the Izvestia daily reported. It said the heavy, slow-moving model - which servicemen referred to as "the cow" - has virtually no armour, making it especially vulnerable to attack.

Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov and Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov flew to Khankala today to oversee the probe, following President Vladimir Putin’s call for a "full and objective" investigation.

Prosecutors opened a criminal case for murder and terrorism, Russian news agencies reported.