Page 10 - ARUBA TODAY

A10 WORLD NEWS
Wednesday 20 september 2017

Report: Russian helicopter fires on spectators at drills

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian of the helicopters firing a
military helicopter gunship rocket that explodes next
accidentally fired on spec- to a spectator on a park-
tators during war games in ing lot.
western Russia, injuring sev- 66.ru said Tuesday two
eral people, news reports people were seriously
said Tuesday. wounded and two ve-
The Russian military ac- hicles were destroyed in
knowledged that a heli- the incident. It said the ac-
copter accidentally fired a cident happened Sunday
rocket during drills, but did or Monday, and that the
not say when and where it video was provided by an
happened. It insisted that unidentified witness.
no one was hurt in the in- Life.ru said the rocket ex-
cident. ploded near a crowd of
The video released on the journalists, military experts
online 66.ru, RBC and Life. and foreign military at-
ru news portals showed a taches.
pair of Ka-52 helicopter It said a preliminary inves-
gunships sweeping low at tigation by military officials
the Luzhsky range, about indicated the incident was
100 kilometers (60 miles) caused by a short-circuit
east of the border with Es- Two Belarusian military helicopters fly during the Zapad (West) 2017 military exercises, near the in the helicopter’s electric
tonia, during the Zapad Volka village, 200 kilometers (125 miles) south-west of Minsk, Belarus, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017. A system that resulted in the
(West) 2017 maneuvers. Russian military helicopter gunship accidentally fired on spectators during the war games in west- accidental launch of the
The video showed one ern Russia, injuring several people, news reports said Tuesday. rocket. Life.ru also posted
(AP Photo/Sergei Grits, Pool) a cockpit video, showing
the rocket’s impact.
Both Life.ru and RBC re-
ported that the incident
took place Saturday and
say that three people were
injured.
Russian President Vladimir
Putin accompanied by the
top military brass attended
the drills at the range on
Monday.
The Russian military’s West-
ern Military District ac-
knowledged Tuesday that
the video was genuine. It
denied that it happened
Monday, but didn’t specify
when or where the incident
in the video took place. It
insisted that no one was
hurt, and that just one mili-
tary truck was damaged.
The military said the inci-
dent was caused by the
failure of the helicopter’s
targeting system.
The Zapad 2017 maneu-
vers, held jointly by Russia
and Belarus, got underway
Thursday at several firing
ranges in both countries
and run through Wednes-
day.
q