NIZHNY NOVGOROD, June 22. /TASS/. The Volga River transport prosecutor’s office has started a probe into a suspected hijack, checking the pilot suspected of hijacking a plane from an aerodrome outside the Siberian city of Tyumen, the senior aide to the prosecutor for media relations, Maya Ivanova, told TASS on Monday.
Checks were launched in connection with media reports that the hijackers of a Yak-52 plane from an aerodrome in the town of Ishim have been detained in the Vladimir region, central Russia. The office looks into whether the use of the Volga River region’s airspace by the pilot was legitimate.
According to earlier reports, two private planes — Gardan GY-80-160 and Yak-52 — took off without permission from an aerodrome in Ishim on Sunday. A Yak-52 pilot later made emergency landing at an airdrome belonging to DOSAAF (Volunteer Society for Cooperation with the Army, Aviation, and Fleet) aviation and sports club in the town of Yalutorovsk, Tyumen region, hitting engineering structures. The Yak-52 pilot then boarded the Gardan GY-80-160 plane which flew in an unknown direction.
According to a law enforcement source, the men were heading towards Moscow (possibly via Perm, a city near the Ural Mountains).
The police later located suspects in hijacking the Yak-52 plane. Senior assistant to head of Investigative Committee’s Urals investigative department for transport Natalya Gunkina said they are currently in the Vladimir region. A criminal case into "hijacking of an aircraft" has been launched.
Early on Monday, members of the DOSAAF commission set up to investigate the incident, left for the Tyumen region.