The Pervomaisky District Court has declared the missing crew members of sunken Kolskaya jack-up drilling rig are legally dead. The oil rig’s owner Arcticmorneftegasrazvedka filed the death in absentia petition after 42 crew members had been missing since Dec. 18, 2011, when the drilling rig capsized and sunk in the Sea of Okhotsk. The court’s decision has been handed over to families of the deceased workers.
A year ago, during a search and rescue operation salvage teams recovered 11 bodies of the 67 crew members with 14 people rescued alive. The Far Eastern Transport Prosecutor's Office, which conducted investigation into the Kolskaya accident case, found that the sunken jack-up drilling rig owner Arcticmorneftegasrazvedka ((AMNGR) violated several requirements of navigation safety.