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Search Stepped up for Urals Joyride Aircraft
14:31 18/06/2012
YEKATERINBURG, June 18 2012 (RIA Novosti)
Tags: An-2, Rosaviatsia, Serov, Russia
Pilot Khatib Kashapov and 12 revelers, including the town's chief of traffic police, were on board the An-2, which was being used to spot forest fires, regional police said.
There has been no response to calls to revellers' mobile phones.
The men had been drinking and decided either to go on a fishing trip or to have a steam bath, police said.
The aircraft had been used "almost daily" for illegal flights, the Moskovsky Komsomolets tabloid reported on Monday, citing a source close to a police inquiry into the incident.
Pilot Kashapov, who was also believed to be drunk, is thought to have had only a compass on him when he steered the plane out of the Serov airfield,
the source said, adding that the plane might have crashed in a wooded area some 100 away.
In Search for Missing Plane, Remains of Other Aircraft Found
28 June 2012
Crews looking for an An-2 biplane that took off without permission from the Urals city of Serov earlier this month have found wreckage of an An-2 — just not the one they were searching for.
Remains of a different aircraft of the same model have been found, along with fragments of a Mi-8 helicopter, during the two-and-a-half-week rescue effort, Urals district Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Vadim Grebennikov told Interfax on Thursday.
He said the aircraft are being identified with the help of the Federal Air Transportation Agency.
Last week, the families of four of the missing people wrote to Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, asking him to step up the search effort.
1500 people involved in a search for a group of drunks and still the famillies ask Putin to step up the effort?Stratofreighter wrote:http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/arti ... 61258.html
In Search for Missing Plane, Remains of Other Aircraft Found
28 June 2012
Crews looking for an An-2 biplane that took off without permission from the Urals city of Serov earlier this month have found wreckage of an An-2 — just not the one they were searching for.
Remains of a different aircraft of the same model have been found, along with fragments of a Mi-8 helicopter, during the two-and-a-half-week rescue effort, Urals district Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Vadim Grebennikov told Interfax on Thursday.
He said the aircraft are being identified with the help of the Federal Air Transportation Agency.
The An-2 biplane being sought went on an unauthorized flight on June 11 with 13 passengers on board, including the local traffic police chief, and never returned.
Local sources said the people believed to have been on board had been drinking before takeoff. Police said the revelers may have gone on a fishing trip or to a banya in a neighboring district.
Search planes have surveyed 219,200 square kilometers looking for the missing An-2, and ground crews have covered 951 square kilometers, a Sverdlovsk region Emergency Situations Ministry spokesperson told Interfax. There are 1,455 people involved in the search effort and around 300 vehicles, including 11 aircraft, the spokesperson said.
...more at http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/05/0 ... 5E20130505MOSCOW | Sun May 5, 2013 1:43pm BST
The wreckage of a Russian light aircraft that disappeared last June with 13 people on board has been discovered by hunters just a few kilometres from the plane's takeoff strip near the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.
Rescue teams were unable to find the An-2 light biplane, which took off without permission on June 11 from a regional airport in Serov with a pilot and 12 passengers on board. Official search efforts were halted four months later.
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