Pilot error?
The fact that the Robinson R44 helicopter, flying along the route Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk – Chekhov Peak – Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, stopped communicating, learned about 10:00 Moscow time, RIA Novosti was told in the emergency services. They also stated that there were three people on board the plane.
Telegram channel affiliated with the Far East Transport Attorney General’s Office reported that they have launched an investigation into the incident.
“According to preliminary data, the destroyed fuselage was discovered during the search and rescue operation,” the ministry said. The ministry added that the helicopter “belongs to the entrepreneur”.
A TASS source in the emergency services said the reason for the helicopter’s hard landing may have been pilot error, as the plane “hit a rock”.
“The ODS Ministry of Emergencies received a message from the search and rescue coordination center in the Sakhalin Region regarding the emergency landing of a Robinson R44 helicopter in the northeast of Krasnaya Mountain. In the press service of the Ministry of Emergencies of Russia, TASS was told that a rescue team on snowmobiles was immediately sent to search, a Mi-8 helicopter of the Ministry of Emergencies of Russia was put on alert.
According to the Telegram channel of the government of the Sakhalin region, an operational headquarters has been created under the regional department of the Ministry of Emergencies of Russia.
The helicopter made an emergency landing on the northeast of Krasnaya Mountain. There were 3 people on board, the captain and two passengers. There is information that one of the passengers was evacuated from the scene and will soon be taken to a medical facility. His condition is assessed as moderate.
Local officials added that “rescue teams removed the pilot’s body from the wreckage of the helicopter”.
Shortly after the helicopter crash was reported, Telegram news channels reported that all passengers on board survived. Sources told reporters, especially from the Shot channel, that there were four passengers and a pilot on board, three people survived but were seriously injured and two more were missing. However, these data have not been confirmed.
According to RIA Novosti, the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case for violation of traffic safety rules and aircraft operation.
survivor
According to Telegram channel 112, a pilot and a passenger died in a helicopter crash on Sakhalin. The woman and her husband went on a plane trip. In the end, only her husband survived. The couple has a child, but his family did not take him with them, the 4-year-old boy stayed at a local hotel with a nanny.
“A series of diagnostic studies were initiated at the district clinical hospital for a patient who was born after a helicopter crash. The man’s condition is tentatively rated as moderate. A comprehensive examination will be conducted in a medical institution to clarify the diagnosis and recommend a treatment plan, ”the government of the Sakhalin Region said.
A TASS source in the emergency services said the survivor was evacuated from the scene of the accident to the hospital in another Robinson helicopter.
The head of the traumatology department of the Sakhalin hospital told REN TV that the injured passenger was “a person from afar, a tourist from the Khabarovsk Territory.”
“He is conscious, he sees everything, he tells everything. His condition is moderate,” he said, adding that initially the hospital was informed of more victims, but that only one was eventually delivered.
He later said that the doctors detected a neck injury in the man, and that he was preparing for surgery.
Robinson crashed in Russia
Over the past year, Robinson helicopters have repeatedly been involved in emergencies or crashed. Especially on July 2, 2022, when a private helicopter of this brand made a hard landing in Khakasya, the pilot was not injured. Emergency services said the plane “landed badly” because it was in “half water”.
Already on July 9 of the same year, a special Robinson helicopter crashed in the Lyuberetsky district of the Moscow region. There were three people on board, all of them survived. Due to a technical malfunction, the vehicle made an emergency landing in a forest belt near the Lytkarinsky Highway.
July 16 Robinson crashed in Kamchatka. At the helm was biathlete Igor Malinovsky, who carried two passengers from the village of Milkovo through the Geysers Valley to the caldera of the Uzon volcano. The plane was discovered on July 17 near the Bolshoy Semyachik volcanic massif – the helicopter crashed and burned down, no one survived.
On November 8, 2022, two private Robinson R44 helicopters immediately disappeared in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, but then everything went smoothly – both planes finally landed safely.
On November 27, 2022, a private Robinson R66 helicopter crashed near Tver, the pilot and passenger died.