KRASNOYASK, October 9 (Itar-Tass) - Four Olympic torch flames failed during an Olympic Torch Relay race held on October 7-8.
Asked to comment on the causes of the four incidents, Oksana Boldyreva, who is Press service chief of Krasmashzavod (Krasnoyarsk machine building plant) which produced the torches for the Olympics, refused to comment. "Under an agreement signed with the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee we have no right to disclose any information about products made in the interests of Sochi 2014 Olympics," the spokeswoman said.
"The trials of the Olympic torches were held under much harder conditions than in practical use. The Krasnoyarsk machine building plant is not to blame for the flames failure," Andrei Samokhin, Chairman of the Committee on budget and economic politics of the Krasnoyarsk legislature, declared on Wednesday.
Representative of the Sochi- 2014 organizing committee Dmitry Chernyshenko blamed the four incidents on human error. "The valve which lets the flames out was not fully opened," Chernyshenko said in his entry on the Twitter.
In any case the incidents involving the Olympic torches that failed during the ceremony will be investigated, said Chief of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of the Krasnoyarsk region Mikhail Vasilyev. Workers of the Krasnoyarsk plant who produced the torches should have taught the Olympic torch bearers to handle them right, he said. "No complaints against the Krasnoyarsk machine building plant had ever been lodged before; all the plant produced "had always worked and hit the target," Vasilyev said.
Until now all the machinery and equipment produced by the Krasnoyarsk machine-building plant had lived up to its reputation of the biggest producer of military and civilian commodities. Krasmashzavod is the main producer of modern, submarine launched ballistic missiles Sineva. It also producers base modules of upper stages for booster rockets Zenith, Proton, liquid engines for space complexes and equipment for the atomic and oil production industries.