Rescuers found 17 bodies Sunday after a tourist helicopter crashed in Russia's remote Kamchatka Peninsula.
The aircraft went down with 22 people on board, including 19 tourists and 3 crew members.
The helicopter, operated by Kamchatka-based Vityaz-aero, disappeared shortly after taking off Saturday, according to regional authorities.
The Russian emergencies ministry said efforts to locate the remaining occupants are ongoing. All those who were on board the helicopter are presumed dead.
The crash is believed to have been caused by poor visibility and adverse weather conditions, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported, citing the emergencies ministry.
The helicopter was discovered early Sunday morning in a hilly area at an altitude of 900 meters, Kamchatka Governor Vladimir Solodov said in a video posted on Telegram.
"The wreckage of the previously missing helicopter was discovered from the air," the emergencies ministry wrote on Telegram.
Aerial footage released by Russia's emergency situations ministry showed debris on a slope near the top of a wooded hill.
The ministry noted that the aircraft was found close to the location where it disappeared from radar.
It took off near the Vachkazhets volcano but failed to reach its destination, according to Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency.
Ivan Lemikhov, a ministry official, said, "At this moment we have already found 17 bodies." He added, "rescuers have set up camp and the search has halted until daybreak."
The two-engine helicopter, a Soviet-designed Mi-8, is commonly used for transport in Russia’s far eastern region, which is sparsely populated and challenging to access, where crashes have been frequent.
In August 2021, a Mi-8 helicopter crashed into a lake in Kamchatka due to poor visibility, killing eight of the 16 people on board.
In July of the same year, a plane crash in the peninsula killed all 28 people aboard.
The cause of Saturday’s crash remains under investigation, but poor visibility due to dense fog is considered a likely factor.
Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
