Moscow: Russian divers on Sunday recovered five bodies from the wreckage of a helicopter that crashed into a lake in the remote north-western tundra with 18 people including top regional officials and businessmen on board.
Two people were rushed to hospital with broken legs after the Mi-8 helicopter smashed into Munozero lake in a remote area on the north-western Kola peninsula late on Saturday, regional officials said.
With five confirmed to have lost their lives, the remaining 11 are considered missing and feared dead.
Top regional officials including a deputy governor of the Murmansk region as well as the head and deputy head of Apatit, manufacturer of components for mineral fertilisers, Alexei Grigoryev and Konstantin Nikitin, are believed to have been on board the helicopter, the officials said.
Tatyana Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the regional emergencies ministry, said that divers had found several bodies in the lake but declined to provide further details. “The bodies are being raised,” she said.
Vladimir Markin, spokesman for the Moscow-based Investigative Committee, told Russian reporters separately that five bodies had so far been recovered. The officials refused to declare the rest of the missing dead.
“We are adults. Probably there’s no hope,” Ms Zakharova said. “But we will be hoping until the last minute.”
