Agencies
Moscow
A helicopter carrying 19 tourists and three crew members has gone missing on the Kamchatka peninsula in the Russian Far East, regional authorities said on Saturday.
Radio contact with the Mi-8 helicopter had been lost near the Vachkazhets volcano and there was no longer any contact with the crew, authorities in the regional capital
of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky said.
Kamchatka peninsula is popular with tourists for its natural beauty and volcanic landscape.
The Russian Ministry of Civil Defence said that dense fog in the area initially prevented a search by air for the helicopter, but ground teams had been able to start scouring the remote terrain.
A source in emergency services told state news agency TASS that the helicopter disappeared from radar almost immediately after taking off and the crew did not report any problems. The helicopter, owned by Vityaz-Aero, was carrying out a trip to the volcano. Designed during the Soviet-era, the Mi-8 helicopter remains popular and widely used in Russia.
It disappeared from radar and crew members failed to make contact from around 16:15 (04:15 GMT), the governor of Kamchatka said. An emergencies ministry source told the state-owned news agency Tass that the crew did not report any difficulties before the disappearance.
The aerial search continuing into the night but there was poor visibility.
Others have joined the search on foot, along the Bystraya River valley, along which the helicopter was supposed to move.
The mountainous Kamchatka peninsula - more than 6,000 km (3,730 miles) east of Moscow - is popular among tourists.
But there have been several air crashes over the years - two in just two months in 2021 alone.
Investigators initiated proceedings for violating air-traffic regulations.
Helicopter excursions are particularly popular with tourists on Kamchatka during the holiday month of August. Private companies offer trips to reserves where bears live in the wild, or landings on volcanoes.
Accidents involving planes and helicopters are frequent in Russia’s far eastern region, which is sparsely populated and where there is often harsh weather.
In August 2021, an Mi-8 helicopter with 16 people on board, including 13 tourists, crashed into a lake in Kamchatka due to poor visibility, killing eight.
In July that year, a plane crashed as it came in to land on the peninsula, with 22 passengers and six crew on board, all of whom were killed.
