MOSCOW, October 29. /TASS/. Specialists from the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) and Russia’s Investigative Committee have arrived in Spitsbergen to join the probe into the crash of a Russian Mi-8 helicopter, a source in Russia’s aviation sector told TASS on Sunday.
"A team of IAC specialists arrived in Spitsbergen on Sunday evening. Investigation is conducted by the Norwegian side and the IAC specialists will join it," he said.
Apart from that, a team of Russian Investigative Committee officials also arrived in Spitsbergen to investigate the criminal case on the crash of the helicopter owned by a Russian company, which carried eight Russian citizens.
"Russian investigators plan to ask the Norwegian side to help organize questioning of air traffic controllers. They also plan to study samples of fuel to exclude a theory the crash was caused by the use of low-quality fuel," he said.
The causes of the crash will be clear after the helicopter’s tail with the flight recorder is lifted.
A helicopter of the Conversavia airline, carrying eight people, was en route from the mothballed community of Pyramiden to Barentsburg when contact with the aircraft was lost at 15:04 local time (16:04 Moscow time). There were five crew and three employees of the Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute on board the helicopter. It was in a proper technical condition and underwent maintenance before the flight, Conversavia said. All passengers and crew of the helicopter are listed as missing. On Sunday, the Norwegian side said that the presumable crash site had been traced at a depth of 209 meters in the Barents Sea some two kilometers off Cape Heer.