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Ten helicopter crash victims in northern Russia identified

Official identification procedure will be finalized when helicopter crash victims are brought to the city of Murmansk

MOSCOW, June 02. /ITAR-TASS/. Ten victims of the crash of a helicopter Mil Mi-8 on Verkhneye Munozero Lake in northern Russia’s Murmansk Region have been identified, the Russian Investigative Committee (IC) told ITAR-TASS on Monday.

“Twelve bodies were recovered, and ten of them have been identified as of now,” the IC said.

Official identification procedure will be finalized when helicopter crash victims are brought to the city of Murmansk.

In the evening on May 31, the helicopter Mi-8 of air company Spark-avia which, according to the IC, was carrying 18 people, including 5 crewmembers and 13 passengers, crashed in Munozero Lake. Two people survived and were taken to hospital with injuries. According to preliminary reports, other 16 people aboard the helicopter died, including Director-General of world’s largest high-graded phosphate ore producer Apatit Alexei Grigoryev, head of the Kirovsk city administration Andrei Zvonar, helicopter crew commander Tovpenko, Valentin Babkin, whose position is being specified, and Alexander Alkhimchikov, Murmansk regional Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology. The search for crash victims continues.