MOSCOW. March 23 (Interfax-AVN) - The command of the Russian Interior Ministry Force officially confirmed that a serviceman of the force and a policemen have died of wounds they received in the Tuesday crash of an MI-8 Hip helicopter in Chechnya.
"A serviceman of the Interior Ministry Force and a policemen, who were wounded in the helicopter crash, have died in the Vladikavkaz military hospital," Colonel Vasily Panchenkov, head of the force's press service, told Interfax-Military News Agency on Wednesday.
A source in the medical service of the Combined Federal Force noted that one of the deceased is a member of the Interior Ministry Force's Vityaz special-purpose detachment and the other one is a police major.
The MI-8 helicopter owned by the Interior Ministry Force crashed near the village of Oktyabrskoye 10km from Khankala at 2:30 p.m. Moscow time (1130 GMT) on Tuesday. The helicopter flying from Khankala was supposed to make stopovers in Goity, Galashki, Bamut, Sernovodsk, Alkan-Kala and Petropavlovskoye before returning to the initial point of its route. The aircraft was carrying 14 members of a search and assault team who had a mission to detain active members and leaders of militant gangs. It had to make an emergency landing on the outskirts of Oktyabrskoye as a result of technical malfunctions, but the aircraft fell on the left side, wounding 13 people.