New York, April 29, 2002—CPJ mourns the tragic deaths of three journalists who were killed yesterday morning when their Mi-8 helicopter crashed in the Krasnoyarsk Region of Siberia.

According to press reports, Natalya Pivovarova, of the 7 Channel television company; Igor Gareyev, of the Krasnoyarsk Regional Broadcasting Company; and Konstantin Stepanov, of the newspaper Segodnyashnyaya Gazeta, were traveling with Krasnoyarsk governor Aleksandr Lebed and other regional officials to the opening ceremony of a new downhill ski slope when their aircraft crashed.

Lebed and six other passengers also died.

The helicopter was flying in poor weather conditions and crashed after hitting a power line. One of the pilots who was hospitalized said the crew had been using an outdated map that "did not have the power line on it," the ITAR-TASS news agency reported.