Flight recorders found after Siberian crash
Russian investigators today found the black box flight recorders from a helicopter crash that killed governor Alexander Lebed and seven others.
The Mi-8 helicopter, carrying 20 people, is believed to have hit a power line before crashing near the Siberian town of Abakan.
Russian media reports said thick fog was being blamed for the accident.
Lebed, a 52-year-old former army general who helped defeat the 1991 hard-line Soviet coup and came third in Russia’s 1996 presidential elections, was one of Russia’s most prominent politicians in the 1990s.
His death dominated Russian newspapers today, and his Krasnoyarsk region declared two days of mourning.
The helicopter was taking him to the opening of a new downhill ski trail about 2,100 miles east of Moscow.
Lebed was widely admired by Russians for his patriotism and his straightforward remarks. After his 1996, he headed then-President Boris Yeltsin’s security council and was credited with brokering an end to Moscow’s 1994-96 war in Chechnya. He was elected governor of Krasnoyarsk in 1998.
