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Death toll in a Russian military helicopter crash Thursday in Chechnya has reached 14 with another injured, Interfax news agency cited a local military source as reporting.
The Mi-8 helicopter hit a power line when it was conducting a routine flight at a low altitude, said an unnamed official from the Chechen Interior Ministry.
The helicopter slammed into ground and caught fire in the suburbs of Grozny, capital of Russia's breakaway republic of Chechnya, at about 4:38 PM Moscow time (12:30 GMT), Chechen Deputy Interior Minister Sultan Satuyev said.
Satuyev confirmed that there were no reasons to suspect that the helicopter came under hostile fire from the ground.
An unnamed local official said the weather was good at the time of the crash and he attributed the incident to either technical problems or pilot's error, according to Itar-Tass news agency.
Preliminary investigation suggests that the Mi-8, belonged to the border guard forces that operate under the authority of the Federal Security Service (FSB), had 15 people on board -- 12 passengers and three crewmembers.
(Xinhua News Agency March 11, 2005)
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