Four survive Tuesday helicopter crash in Yakutia - official
MOSCOW. July 3 (Interfax) - Russian Emergency Situations Ministry rescue teams who located the crash scene of a Mi-8 helicopter in Yakutia earlier on Wednesday are evacuating the four survivors, ministry spokesman Oleg Voronov told Interfax.
"Three survivors have already been taken on board a helicopter and are being evacuated, and the fourth will be picked up in the near future," he said.
A local law enforcement source told Interfax later that the survivors are the three crewmembers and a teenager.
"Out of the 28 people who were on board, three crewmembers and a 12-year-old boy have survived the crash. The boy has a spinal fracture," he said.
"Nobody else has survived the crash apart from these four. 24 people have been killed," the source said.
Earlier reports said that there were 25 passengers, including 11 children, and three crewmembers aboard the Polar Airlines helicopter on a flight from the town of Deputatsky to the village of Kazachye that made a rough landing 45 kilometers northwest of Deputatsky, Yakutia.