MOSCOW. Aug 8 (Interfax-AVN) - One pilot was killed and the other two sustained severe injuries as a result of an MI-8 Hip helicopter's crash in Chechnya on Thursday evening, Air Force spokesman Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky told Interfax-Military News Agency on Friday.
Drobyshevsky said that the killed crewmember, Lieutenant Colonel Viktor Tyurikov, a deputy regiment commander for educational programs, "was an experienced pilot with about 5,000 hours of flight experience."
The other two crewmembers, Major Alexander Orlov and flight engineer Yury Potskevich, were hospitalized in grave condition.
Drobyshevsky said that the MI-8 helicopter was shot down by rebels from a portable missile launcher "at 8:25 p.m. Moscow time (1625 GMT) on Thursday after it dropped a landing force seven kilometers from the Chechen village of Dyshne-Vedeno."