Helicopter with 22 people on board missing in Russia’s Kamchatka region

A helicopter carrying 22 people disappeared from radar on Saturday, August 31 in the far east of Russia, regional authorities said. “A MI-8 helicopter (…) disappeared from the radar with 22 people on board: 19 passengers and three crew members”Kamchatka Region Governor Vladimir Solodov said in a video posted on Telegram.

“A flyover of the area was carried out, which unfortunately yielded no results”partly due to poor visibility, the official added. A group of rescuers and two helicopters were urgently deployed to the suspected crash site on the volcanic Kamchatka Peninsula, Russian authorities said. The MI-8 is a Soviet-made military helicopter.

The volcanic peninsula of Kamchatka is famous for its magnificent landscapes, which tourists like to fly over in helicopters, for an entrance fee that is often very expensive. Plane and helicopter accidents are quite frequent there.

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. The accident left eight people dead.

In July of the same year, a passenger plane crashed with 22 passengers and six crew members on board as it was preparing to land on the volcanic peninsula, leaving no survivors.