According to a lieutenant-general in the Vietnamese Army, the helicopter that crashed on June 7 was too low for the soldiers to have parachuted to safety.
Soldiers could not parachute
The death toll from the accident is still at 18. The Russian-built Mi-171 helicopter crashed in Hanoi’s outlying district of Thach That.
Vo Van Tuan, Deputy Chief of the Vietnamese Army’s General Staff told DtiNews on July 9 that authorities were speeding up the decoding of the black box.
“The black box was ejected from the helicopter during the crash, so it will take more time to decode,” Tuan noted.
Nguyen Duy Kien, from the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, said that all the soldiers who died in the crash will be considered martyrs under current regulations.
The Minister of National Defense plans to hold a commemoration ceremony the 18 solders at the National Funeral Home on July 11.
