85 dead soldiers in copter crash.

[Matthew X]

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.