YEKATERINBURG. July 11 (Interfax-AVN) - The Smerch multiple rocket launch system, the firing from which caused a person injury at the opening of the Russian Expo Arms 2002 show, is considered to be in working order, Alexander Zapolsky, chief of the incident investigation commission and constructor general of the Nizhny Tagil metal testing institute, said on Thursday.
The commission found no troubles in the Smerch system work, Zapolsky told Interfax-Military News Agency. According to him, "the commission found out that the reason for the incident was the non-correspondence of the ground on which the system was tested before the show and ground at the Spasatel proving range in the city of Nizhny Tagil."
Zapolsky said that the system was originally tested on the sandy ground while the Spasatel proving range's ground is the rocky one. "That is why the distance on which the shell's rear cover flew was more than it was supposed to be," he stressed. That is why the cover turned out to be in the safe zone and injured a person.
The commission's head said that corrections in the instruction on the system firing will be made in the near future.
Yevgeny Boyarsky, who is employee of the Uralvagonzavod enterprise and was injured in hand and chest by the shell's cover on Tuesday, underwent operation in the city's hospital and was relocated to reanimation in complicated health condition. At present he is transferred back to a normal room in satisfactory condition and his life is out of danger, Zapolsky added.
The Nizhny Tagil metal testing institute will pay insurance to Boyarsky and pay for his treatment in best hospitals of the Sverdlovsk region and new operation if needed, Zapolsky said.