A blogger has airlifted and dropped a Mercedes-Benz G-Class SUV from a helicopter in northern Russia for reasons that remain unclear.
Footage showed the Mercedes Geländewagen falling onto the frozen taiga and turning into a flat pile of metal in northwestern Russia’s republic of Karelia. The region’s transport police said they were investigating whether any laws were broken in the stunt.
The vehicle’s owner paid a local airport $4,000 to drop it from a height of 300 meters, the Karelia-based news website onego.ru reported Thursday. Airport officials said what remained of the SUV was taken to a scrapyard.
Citing unnamed sources, the news site said that the drop was the result of a bet.
The blogger’s own account, however, suggests that he had paid for the helicopter to airlift and unhook the Geländewagen from up high as a publicity stunt.
“You’ll probably ask me why I’m doing this,” blogger Igor Moroz, whose previous posts includes prank videos, told his viewers.
“This was my dream [car], which I saved up for and bought two years ago,” Moroz said in the YouTube video after the drop.
“I grew disappointed in it and now you see what it’s turned into... I was completely fed up," he said.
The blogger did lend credence to initial reports of a bet, saying as the helicopter took off: “I won the bet, time to lift the Gelik [Geländewagen].”
Standing over the flattened scrap metal afterward, Moroz announced he would give away five cars in a contest for his 2.8 million Instagram subscribers.
Over half a million people have watched the video since it was posted Thursday.
