News

The Northwestern Transport Office of the Investigative Committee has received a media report about a crash of a helicopter in Istanbul which killed 4 residents of Saint Petersburg. The office has opened an investigation in violation of safety standards for traffic and operation of an aircraft entailing death of more than two people under Part 3 of Article 263 of the RF Penal Code.

According to investigators, the Sikorsky S-76 helicopter carrying 4 residents of Saint Petersburg took off from Ataturk Airport on 10 March 2017 and 5 minutes later crashed in Buyukcekmece district in Istanbul.

The Northwestern Transport Office held a briefing immediately to work out a plan of investigation.

At present, the investigators are locating the families of the victims. The bodies are expected to be delivered at the Forensic Medical Bureau in Saint Petersburg on 12 March 2017 for postmortems and other examinations, including DNA tests. A number of investigative and search operations are underway to find out all the circumstances surrounding the crime.

The investigation is supervised by the head of the office.