Search parties on nine helicopters and 19 snowmobiles scoured the Moscow region Monday for a Robinson R44 chopper believed to have been carrying the son of a State Duma deputy. The helicopter disappeared over the weekend.
Vasily Petrov, son of Yury Petrov, a United Russia deputy and former head of the Federal Property Management Agency, was heading from the Tver region to suburban Moscow aboard a private helicopter reportedly piloted by controversial businessman Fyodor Tsarev.
Tsarev was convicted of car theft and later dubbed the "peat tsar" for leveling forestland to dig up peat and sand, Moskovsky Komsomolets reported.
The flight, reportedly carrying a third man, was unregistered, the newspaper said. The last cell-phone signal from the pilot was recorded in the Moscow region's Solnechnogorsky district, where rescue efforts were under way.
(MT)
