A tragic month for Russian aviation: High-profile helicopter crashes

The deputy of the Arkhangelsk City Duma, Sergei Smetanin, and businessman Alexei Semenov, died in a helicopter crash, according to "Kommersant". The tragedy supposedly occurred on September 26. Meanwhile, on September 17, the owner of a gold mining company died in a similar incident.

The Robinson R44 helicopter's wreckage was discovered near Arkhangelsk. On Thursday evening, the helicopter was reported missing from radar.

Today at 2:10 AM Eastern Time, a helicopter from the regional search and rescue base in Arkhangelsk discovered the Robinson R44 helicopter, which went down 5 kilometres from the village of Bych'e. The bodies of two people were found at the crash site, explained the local fire department, as informed by "Kommersant."

Smetanin and Semenov were supposed to be on board, but the helicopter belonged to a third party. According to unofficial information, the men were going fishing when the helicopter hit trees. Semenov was the president of a scrap metal company.

On September 17, the MK.ru ("Moskowski Komsomolets") service reported on a Robinson R66 helicopter crash in the Amur region in the Asian part of Russia. In this crash, Mikael Arutyunyan, the owner of Khergu LLC - a gold mining company - died along with his employee and the pilot.

LLC Khergu is one of the leading producers of precious metals in the Amur region. The helicopter belonged to the company, added the Ukrainian news agency RBC-Ukraine.

However, this has not been the end of the problems with Russian helicopters in recent weeks. On August 31, a Mi-8T helicopter belonging to Vityaz Aero disappeared in Kamchatka with 22 people on board. The next day, another helicopter crashed in the same region. Additionally, on August 15, a Tu-22M3 bomber crashed in the Irkutsk region. Russian authorities claimed that a technical failure caused the accident.