UKRAINE: AIRSHOW JET DISASTER: RELATIVES OF VICTIMS CROWD MORGUE AND HOSPITAL CORRIDORS IN SEARCH FOR NEWS/ CRASH AFTERMATH PICTURES

Record ID: 640469

  • Title: UKRAINE: AIRSHOW JET DISASTER: RELATIVES OF VICTIMS CROWD MORGUE AND HOSPITAL CORRIDORS IN SEARCH FOR NEWS/ CRASH AFTERMATH PICTURES
  • Date: 27th July 2002
  • Summary: (W5) AIRFIELD OUTSIDE OF LVIV, UKRAINE (JULY 27, 2002) (REUTERS) MV YOUNG GIRL BEING COMFORTED BY WOMAN (BOTH COVERED IN BLOOD) MV WOMAN CHECKING BODY ON GROUND FOR PULSE MV TWO WOMAN WALKING PAST, THEIR HANDS CLUTCHED TO THEIR MOUTHS / ZOOM INTO PERSON BEING TREATED IN THE BACKGROUND CLOSEUP WOMAN SEARCHING THE AREA CLOSEUP YOUNG BOY HOLDING PIECE OF CLOTH TO HIS FACE SV SAME BOY (LOOKING PUZZLED) HOLDING A CLOTH TO HIS FACE WIDE VIEW SMOKE BILLOWING AT THE SCENE WITH COMMERCIAL PLANE IN F/G
  • Embargoed: 11th August 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LVIV, UKRAINE
  • Country: Ukraine
  • Topics: Accidents,General,Transport
  • Reuters ID: LVAC91Y227IMQJ275PYFYMMNB2L7
  • Story Text: Relatives have stood outside the morgue and crowded hospital corridors seeking news of loved ones after a jet crashed into spectators in western Ukraine, killing 83 in the world's worst air show disaster.
    Some searched for relatives to no avail on Sunday (July 28) as officials struggled to identify those killed when the Sukhoi Su-27 fighter plane clipped the ground and cartwheeled into a crowd on Saturday (July 27), exploding into an orange and black fireball.
    Senior local officials said it was getting increasingly hard to identify the bodies, many ripped apart by metal shards from the plane which were flung across the Sknyliv military air field, on the outskirts of this picturesque city.
    A huge refrigerator stood outside one morgue and officials dressed in white overalls searched through the victims' remains to try to identify them.
    Alla Molotkova spoke to reporters from outside the morgue and said she was trying to contact her friend whose daughter had died in the crash.
    "I'm looking for a friend, Kalachevskaya Yelena Ivanovna, who worked in Italy. I'd like to inform her that her daughter died during the aircrash and ask her relatives to contact me,"
    she said.
    Relatives also crowded hospital corridors on Sunday seeking news of loved ones injured or missing in the air show disaster.
    A young boy described the incident from his hospital bed.
    "It (the impact) dragged me across the tarmac and I was rolling," he said.
    Authorities said investigators were continuing their analysis of the flight recorder retrieved from the wrecked fighter jet, which fell from the sky after failing to complete a tricky aerobatics manoeuvre.
    Late on Saturday, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma vowed to punish those responsible for the crash, which injured more than 100 people including children. He sacked Ukraine's air force chief and launched an investigation to be led by top officials.
    Evhem Marchuk, secretary of Ukraine's defence and security council and head of the state commission into the accident, said investigators were analysing the flight recorder retrieved from the Russian-made fighter jet.
    The government has also earmarked 10 million hryvnias ($1.8 million USD) to help victims' families.
    Marchuk said the two most likely reasons why the fighter plane hit the ground were air force negligence or plane failure.
    He said there were other versions of events, but it was too early to come to any single conclusion.
    Local media blamed the tragedy on engine failure and witnesses said the engine went quiet before the jet plunged to the ground. But Kuchma said it was too early to apportion blame.
    The two experienced pilots ejected seconds before the plane began to somersault and both were being treated in hospital, local officials said.
    The Lviv crash was the world's worst air show disaster. In 1988, 70 people were killed when three Italian jets collided, sending one into a crowd at the U.S. Air Force base in Ramstein, Germany.
    db
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