A Ukrainian helicopter crashed into a Black Sea oil drilling rig on Monday, killing all 19 people aboard, a government spokesman said.
The MiG-8 passenger helicopter had been carrying workers to an offshore oil rig in the Sea of Azov near the Crimea peninsula, said Yury Avdeev, an official from the state-owned Chernomornaftohaz energy company.
Victims included 17 rig workers and three flight crew, Avdeev said.
The aircraft's rotor struck a steel a fence rail on the rig during a landing attempt, causing the helicopter to turn over, crash into the rig and burn, said Iosif Vinsky, a transport ministry spokesman.
The MiG servicing the government-operated Tavrida oil and gas field had received all proper pre-flight checks and was fit for flight, Vinsky said.
Weather conditions in the region had been rainy and windy prior to the accident, the dpa reported.
The mishap came exactly one month after a Ukrainian Border Troops helicopter, also a MiG-8, smashed into the Black Sea near the Danube delta, en route to an island observation post.
Thirteen persons died and one passenger survived in the crash, caused by a combination of poor weather and pilot error, investigators said.