Poor organisation and pilot failure cause of crash

The head of a Ukraine government commission investigating the air show crash in Lviv that killed 84 people said poor organisation…

The head of a Ukraine government commission investigating the air show crash in Lviv that killed 84 people said poor organisation of the show and pilot error were main reasons for the crash.

In an interview with the newspaper Den, Yevhen Marchuk said that "obviously...there was a complex set of reasons for the crash". He said: "They include problems in organisation of the show and of the aircraft operation".

He said that it had been determined that the pilots deviated from their planned trajectory and that no preventative measures were taken on the ground to avert casualties.

In the July 27 accident, a Soviet-era Su-27 fighter jet crashed into a crowd of spectators at an air show, killing 83 people, including 27 children. The 84th victim, a 59-year-old woman, died on Friday.

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A total of 146 people were injured. Three people remained in hospital in a serious condition, Marchuk said.

Five victims are still unidentified, Marchuk said.

He said the victims included citizens of Russia and the Baltic countries. Marchuk said that among 26 surviving children, 14 had lost a parent and two had lost both parents.

Despite a rule at Ukraine's central bank not to open individual accounts, the government commission will begin talks with the bank about compensating those children who lost their parents, Marchuk said.

"Those are not children who simply lost parents, those are children, who lost parents in front of their eyes," Marchuk said. "Those are children with horrible psychological traumas."

Following the crash, President Leonid Kuchma banned the use of military planes in public shows and all of the army's training flights were cancelled until the investigation is completed.

AP