Moscow Helicopter Crash

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Nando Times

Helicopter belonging to pioneering Russian eye doctor crashes

The Associated Press

MOSCOW (June 2, 2000 1:45 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - A helicopter belonging to the clinic of a world-renowned doctor who pioneered an eye operation for nearsightedness crashed in Moscow on Friday, killing all four people aboard, said officials.

The name of Svyatoslav Fyodorov - the developer of radial keratotomy - was on the flight list, a spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry said, but there was no immediate word on whether the surgeon was among the victims.

Fyodorov's personal documents were found in the wreckage, Russian news agencies said.

A woman who answered the phone at Fyodorov's clinic declined to say whether Fyodorov was aboard the Mi-8 helicopter when it crashed in northwest Moscow.

But she said the helicopter was returning from the city of Tambov and the news agency Interfax cited clinic sources as saying Fyodorov had flown on the craft to that city the day before.

Fyodorov made his name in the 1970s by developing radial keratotomy, a cornea operation that improves the vision of many who are nearsighted. He made substantial profits with an assembly-line operating system that treated tens of thousands of people a year.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), June 03, 2000


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