Mi-24 helicopters collide in Russia

[Time Out]

Reuters Foundation AlertNet report:

26 Aug 2003 05:30:10 GMT

Five die in remote Russian chopper collision

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Five people died and one person was injured when two military helicopters collided while landing in a remote eastern area of Russia, an Emergency Ministry official said on Tuesday.
"Two military helicopters collided. Five were killed and one wounded," the ministry spokesman said, declining other details.
The Mi-24 helicopters crashed into each other at a landing strip in the town of Ussuriisk, about 20 kilometres from Vladivostok near the Chinese border. No further details of the accident were immediately available.
The accident happened just days after the governor of Sakhalin island and 19 others were killed in a helicopter crash. Their bodies were recovered three days later.
Last year the governor of the Kransnoyarsk region, Alexander Lebed, died with six others in a crash in Siberia.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L26166670.htm


Also

The Kansas City Star report:
Tue Aug 26 2003


5 Killed When Two Russian Choppers Collide
Associated Press

MOSCOW - Two military helicopters collided over an airfield in Russia's Far East on Tuesday, killing five people and injuring one in the second deadly helicopter crash in the area in a week, officials said.
The two Mi-24 helicopters collided while attempting to land at the Chernigovka airfield in the Primorye region, about 50 miles from the town of Ussurisk, the Defense Ministry press service said.
It said five of the six crew members on board the two craft were killed and one was injured.
The helicopters were taking part in major military training exercises that began across the Far East last week, the Defense Ministry said.
The crash came six days after an Mi-8 helicopter carrying the governor of the Far East region of Sakhalin and 19 other people crashed on the rugged Kamchatka peninsula, killing its passengers and crew.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/breaking_news/6618983.htm

[Heliport]

Gateway to Russia report 26 August 2003 18:52
Helicopter collision blamed on carelessness
The collision of two Mi-24 military helicopters in the Primorye region was the result of “carelessness, bravado and air hooliganism”, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov said in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on Tuesday.

He stressed that the catastrophe was due to the dangerous proximity of the two machines. “While landing, the senior pilot of the rear helicopter flew too close to the craft flying in front of it, and the rotor blades of the rear helicopter hit the beam and tail rotor of the other machine,” he said.

The Defense Minister said he had informed President Vladimir Putin of the incident. According to Rossiya (Russia) television, Mr. Ivanov noted that the simultaneous landing of two aircraft had not been planned, but an officer in charge of the flights had permitted it. The Defense Minister added that that person had already been dismissed, and a criminal case had been opened against him.

Mr. Ivanov said six servicemen had died as a result of the collision at the Chernigovka airfield, and one was injured.

Earlier, there were suggestions that a bird flew into the rear helicopter's engine before the collision.
Don't hang about do they? :eek: