On board the Mi-24, whose crew died on Dec 17, was Hero of Ukraine Oleksandr Shemet. It was he who carried out the last air raid on “Azovstal”

The commander of the Mi-24 helicopter crew, who died on December 17 while performing a combat mission, was Hero of Ukraine Oleksandr Shemet. It was he who carried out the last successful air raid on the blocked “Azovstal” plant in Mariupol in April 2022.

The deceasedʼs brother Yuriy Shemet told Suspilne about this.

He said that the crew of the Mi-24 crashed in the Cherkasy region. On the evening of December 17, the serviceman received an order to fly to intercept the "Shaheds".

"The plane took off, kept in touch with the control point. Later, the helicopter was not detected on the radar at the control point. This indicates that it had already crashed. There is confirmation of the death. Four bodies were found at the crash site. All crew members died. This is a fact," says Yuriy Shemet.

The brother of the deceased pilot adds that a preliminary investigation has established that the helicopter collided with a "Shahed", which was not seen at the control point because it was flying very low.

"The people who conducted the investigation say theyʼve never seen anything like this before. The helicopter was so badly damaged that it was, you could say, completely torn to pieces. The bodies were badly burned," adds Yuriy Shemet.

Experts are currently decoding information from the flight recorder. The family of the deceased rejects the versions of a machine malfunction or pilot error. The identification of the bodies of the deceased is currently underway.

Soldier Oleksandr Shemet has lived most of his life in the Lviv region, where he was sent to serve after graduating from a military academy. Since 2015, he has participated in the anti-terrorist operation in eastern Ukraine, and at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, he defended Kyiv.

Oleksandr received the title of Hero of Ukraine for the last air raid on “Azovstal” in Mariupol on April 5, 2022 — the pilot delivered ammunition and medicines there, and took the wounded back.

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