A Ukrainian Mi-8 military helicopter crashed while performing a training flight in western Ukraine shortly before midnight on May 29, killing all four people aboard.
The dead include three crew members and the commander of the 16th military aviation brigade.
Censor.net information portal reported that the helicopter caught fire while making an emergency landing. The blaze was reportedly extinguished by 1 a.m. on May 30.
The crash happened near the village of Sestryatyn in Rivne Oblast, 432 kilometers west of Kyiv. The 16th military aviation brigade, to which the helicopter belonged, is based in the nearby town of Brody in Lviv Oblast.
Censor.net identified one of the victims as Colonel Ihor Yaroslavovych Mazepa, who won an award on July 19, 2014 for heroism and courage in defending Ukraine against Russia’s war.
The State Bureau of Investigations said that the helicopter was performing a scheduled training exercise at the moment of the crash.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy ordered that general Ruslan Khomchak, commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Ukraine, take charge of the investigation. Zelenskiy and military commanders expressed their condolences to the families of the crash victims.
