What do you call that? http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?artid=19633353 85 Russian soldiers die in Chechnya copter crash AP [ TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2002 8:04:44 AM ] MOSCOW: A Russian transport helicopter jammed with troops crashed in Chechnya on Monday, and Russian news agencies reported that as many as 85 servicemen were killed in the wreck near Moscow's front-line base for its battle with separatist rebels. Russian officials said they did not know whether the Mi-26 helicopter was shot down or how many people were killed. The helicopter went down near the Russian military headquarters at Khankala outside Chechnya's capital Grozny with 132 people aboard, said Col. Boris Podoprigora, deputy commander of Russian troops in Chechnya. Grim-faced, he said 32 were hospitalized and would survive, and that doctors were doing their best to treat others at the crash site, where other military officials said the wreck burned for at least an hour after the crash. The Interfax news agency later reported that 142 people were aboard the helicopter, citing an unidentified source at the headquarters. Podoprigora did not say how many people died. Sergei Fridinsky, a deputy prosecutor general, told the Interfax news agency there were dozens of dead and wounded, and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, in a written statement issued by the Defense Ministry, offered his condolences to relatives of the servicemen who were killed. He did not provide any numbers. Earlier, Interfax reported that about 80 servicemen were killed, citing a source at the military headquarters. ITAR-Tass, also citing a source there, put the death toll at 85. Fridinsky said investigators were examining two main possible causes of the crash _ that the helicopter was shot down by Chechen rebels or suffered a technical problem. A high-ranking source at the headquarters said authorities believed it was more likely a technical problem, but that nothing was being ruled out. Defense Ministry press office chief Nikolai Deryabin told ORT state television that the pilot had requested permission to make an emergency landing because an engine was on fire. Fridinsky said the helicopter fell onto a minefield. Podoprigora said he could not confirm that, but he said rescuers were working in difficult conditions at the site, which Russian TV networks said was cordoned off. Podoprigora said the Mi-26, described as the biggest helicopter in the world, is designed to carry 82 people. Officials did not say why so many servicemen were on the flight from a military base at Mozdok in neighboring Ingushetia. Authorities said all five crew members survived. President Vladimir Putin ordered a thorough and fair investigation into the crash, which ITAR-Tass said was the biggest in Russian army history, and said he wanted to be kept up to date. The crash came amid a spate of rebel actions against Russian forces in Chechnya, including attacks late last week in southwestern Chechnya that killed nine servicemen and five civilians. Some analysts surmised that rebels had intensified their actions to underline to the Russian government that it should enter peace negotiations. A Chechen rebel representative met last week in Geneva with a former head of Russia's Security Council, to discuss restarting talks that have been stalled since last year. Russia's government maintains that the war it launched in the breakaway Caucasus Mountain republic in fall 1999 is all but over, with just isolated groups of rebels holding out. However, Russian soldiers are killed almost every day in rebel attacks that sap the military's manpower and morale. In September 2001, two generals and 11 other Russian servicemen died when their helicopter was shot down by a shoulder-fired missile shortly after takeoff from Grozny. Another helicopter, an Mi-8 carrying two top Interior Ministry officials and 12 other people, crashed in Chechnya in January. The Kremlin said that crash was an accident, but an official with the Moscow-appointed civilian administration for Chechnya said investigators had found fragments of the helicopter that suggested it was also shot down with a missile. Helicopter crashes are fairly common in Russia, where the aging craft _ sometimes weighed down by passengers and cargo _ are often used to ferry soldiers or civilians to remote areas that are hard to reach by road, rail or plane. Russian forces withdrew from Chechnya following a devastating 1994-1996 war that left separatists in charge, but they returned in 1999 after Chechnya-based militants invaded a neighboring region and the Kremlin blamed rebels for apartment-building bombings killed 300 people in Moscow and other cities.