Accidents with aircraft: who is to blame

Russian Chief Military Prosecutor Alexander Savenkov announced on Thursday that the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation would bring an accusation against military officials whose actions led to the accident of the Mi-26 helicopter on August 19th in Chechnya.

Lieutenant-General Sergei Solntsev, Head of the Flight Security Service of the Russian Armed Forces, expressed his opinion about the accident with the Mi-26 helicopter in his interview to RIA Novosti.

According to the Lieutenant-General, a number of circumstances account for the accident. Exhaustion of military equipment and inadmissible kindliness of aerodrome security service that overlooked the terrorist with an anti-aircraft missile complex and admitted him to the flight zone within firing range account for the accident. Drawbacks in flight rules that do not contain exact requirements for the transportation of people and equipment during military operations account for it as well.

The only violation of the flight rules the pilots allegedly made was overload of the helicopter. But it is not true. The helicopter could take aboard more than 159 passengers. Though the characteristics of the helicopter allowed to take aboard 85 passengers only.

Lieutenant-General Sergei Solntsev had participated in the investigation of the accident from the very beginning. He categorically turned down any assumption that "big military bosses" had been pressing upon the members of the investigation commission trying to make it take a decision favourable for the Russian Defense Ministry. It is not true, said Mr. Solntsev. "I met with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and he was interested to know what I thought of the accident. However, he did not give me any instructions", stressed the Lieutenant- General. "Decoding of the information of the flight recorder proved that we are right". The main reason for the accident is war and direct hit of a missile in the engine.