OMSK, Russia, Nov. 25 (UPI) -- Seven workers being flown to an oilfield were killed Thursday when their helicopter exploded and crash-landed, the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency said.
Three crew members were also injured in the midday (1 a.m. EST) accident in Russia's Omsk region in southwest Siberia, said the agency also known as Rosaviatsiya, responsible for overseeing Russia's civil aviation industry.
The Mi-8 medium twin-turbine transport helicopter, made by the Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant, had been traveling to the northern Omsk region's Krapivinskoye Oilfield when it caught fire and went down about 1,400 miles east of Moscow, the Prosecutor General Office's investigative committee said.
"Fuel tanks exploded as the helicopter made a crash landing," the non-governmental news agency Interfax quoted the Emergencies Ministry as saying.
The helicopter belonged to Novosibirsk Aircraft Repair Plant, the state-owned Russian Information Agency Novosti reported.
The injured crew members were hospitalized in the town of Tara, about 185 miles north of the city of Omsk, a Rosaviatsia official said.
The Mi-8 is the world's most-produced helicopter, used by more than 50 countries, with Russia its largest operator.
