KYIV -- Ukrainian investigators have charged five emergency officials with violating aviation safety regulations that led to the helicopter crash that killed Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskiy and 13 other people in January.
The State Bureau of Investigations (DBR) said on November 27 that the five -- Ivan Korobka, Volodymyr Leonov, Oleh Ivanov, Andriy Dvornyk, and Yan Koshman -- are officials of the State Emergency Service.
They were officially indicted after the investigation into the aircraft crash ended, the statement said.
The five were detained in August. A court later released them but ordered to stay at home during nighttime.
The helicopter of the State Emergency Service carrying Monastyrskiy, his first deputy minister, Yevhen Yenin, State Secretary Yuriy Lubkovych, and other officials, was on its way to the eastern regions of Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk, when it crashed in foggy conditions into a kindergarten and the surrounding residential area of Brovary near the Ukrainian capital on January 18.
The crash killed 14 people, including those onboard as well as four women and a child in the kindergarten. Another 31 people, including 13 children, were injured. Some were evacuated to the European Union for treatment at the time.
Investigators say the helicopter did not have permission papers to carry out flights for purposes other than emergency situations.
"The crew commander began the flight without having full information about weather conditions for the whole route of the flight, and the crew did not have the necessary permission to carry out flights in complicated weather conditions, as well as the necessary certificates. None of the supervising officials responsible for aviation safety either canceled the flight or postponed it until better weather conditions," the DBR's statement said.
Monastyrskiy, 42, was appointed to the post of the interior minister in mid-July 2021. In September 2022, six months after Russia launched its ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Monastyrskiy participated in the largest prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia, when 215 Ukrainian soldiers returned home.