“Get out, I’m telling you”: a fire on board a Gazprom helicopter

The fire spread rapidly and the crew had to act urgently.

Mi-8 of the Gazprom Avia company took off at Bovanenkovo airport in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The flight was going as normal, and then an emergency happened.

A flame broke out in the main gearbox (served to transmit torque to the main and tail rotors and the drives of the machine’s components). It was blown by the wind and soon the roof and the cargo being transported were on fire.

If not for the coordinated actions of the crew, everything could have ended badly. The pilot landed the helicopter right in a field, forty kilometers from the airport. The fire was extinguished on its own and no one was injured.