This February, experts from Norway's Accident Investigation Board, responsible for investigating transport-related accidents, are to visit Convers Avia Air Company, based at Zmeyevo Airport in Tver. They will establish the exact causes of the October 26, 2017 Mi-8 (Hip) helicopter crash near Spitsbergen (Svalbard), the air company's Deputy Director Dmitry Zhelyazkov told TASS on Thursday.

"Experts from the Norwegian agency investigating the accident's causes are set to visit Russia and particularly our company in February. They have already notified us about this in advance," he said. The Transport Prosecutor's Office and the Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya) have already made inspections at the company and have not found any violations linked with the accident, he added.  

The families of crew members are already receiving compensation from the Social Insurance Fund and from regional authorities and other organizations. "All payments are being made at different intervals, and it is so far impossible to say whether everyone has received all of them. The company is now collecting data on those who have been compensated and to what extent, and will later offer its own help to them. Every person and every family will be paid individually," Zhelyazkov said.

A Convers Avia Mi-8 helicopter with five crew members and three employees of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute disappeared on October 26 while flying to Barentsburg from the abandoned town of Pyramiden in the Spitsbergen Archipelago.