Four killed in helicopter crash in Siberia

MOSCOW: A helicopter crash Thursday in the southern Siberian region of Altai killed four people, the Russian emergency situations ministry said after reporting a higher death toll before the discovery of two survivors.

The local branch of the ministry said that a “private Mi-8 helicopter hit electrical wires” while landing in the village of Tyungur and caught fire.

The ministry initially reported that six people of the 16 on board had died. It later announced that two others had survived.

“It was assumed that two people were under the wreckage but it turned out they left the aircraft on their own and independently walked to hospital in a state of shock,” the ministry’s press service told the RIA Novosti news agency.

In an update, the ministry said that four people died, 10 were injured and two others did not require medical assistance.

Some of the injured are in a serious condition, according to Russian news agencies.

Images released by the ministry showed firefighters working on the charred wreckage.

The ministry said that the fire had been extinguished.

According to Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency, the helicopter belongs to a company called “Altai Avia” and was carrying a group of tourists.

Russian investigators said a probe into the violation of the rules of safety of air transport has been launched.

Accidents involving planes and helicopters, widely used in remote parts of the country, are frequent in Russia, often caused by bad weather, human error or technical issues.