Russian helicopter falls into lake; 16 feared dead as

MOSCOW: A helicopter carrying 18 people crashed into a lake in northwestern Russia and only two of them were believed to have survived, officials said Sunday. The two passengers, who floated to the surface still strapped into their seats, were rescued by fishermen and hospitalized for treatment of broken legs and other injuries, Rossiya state television reported.
According to preliminary information, the Mi-8 helicopter smashed into Munozero lake in a remote area in the northwestern Murmansk region on Saturday, regional officials said.
The state news agency RIA Novosti, citing unidentified sources, said that among the passengers were Apatit executives and regional government officials. The report said they were believed to have been on a fishing trip.
The cause of the crash was still under investigation, but was most likely due either to technical failure of poor weather, the spokesman for the federal Investigative Committee, Vladimir Markin, said in a statement. Two people were injured and hospitalized and the rest are considered missing, officials said.
“The helicopter is in the water,” Emergencies Ministry spokeswoman Tatyana Zakharova told AFP.


, adding that divers were deployed to help with the rescue operation.


Officials refused to declare those missing dead.
“Until the bodies are found, they are considered alive,” said Apatit’s Kryuchek.
Top regional officials including deputy Murmansk governor are believed to also have been on board the chopper.
Denis Pushin, spokesman for the Murmansk regional administration, refused to identify the passengers of the helicopter.
“I am not ready to bury anyone,” he told AFP. “The passenger manifest is being verified.”
He said the two survivors had been found floating on the water fastened to their chairs. Investigators named a possible aircraft malfunction and bad weather as likely causes of the crash.
Officials could not begin a rescue operation when they received the first reports of the crash on Saturday due to poor weather conditions. Some 100 people were working on the scene of the crash on Sunday, the emergencies ministry said.
Aviation crashes are frequent in Russia and are often blamed on ageing aircraft and poor maintenance.