A light helicopter crashed Friday in western Russia, killing the pilot, local law enforcement sources said.

The Bell-407 chopper went down in the Nizhnekamsk Region of Tatarstan Republic around noon, the Interfax news agency quoted a source in local emergency situations department as saying.

"The pilot was killed. There was no one else aboard the helicopter," the source said, adding that the cause of the crash is under investigation.

According to preliminary reports, the aircraft, owned by local company Akbars Aero, disappeared from radar en route from Bugulma, a town in Tatarstan, to Kazan, the capital of the republic.

This is the second air disaster involving a Bell-407 helicopter in the past two months. Another pilot was killed when his Bell-407 helicopter crashed in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region in March.

The U.S.-made, four-blade, single-engine, civil-utility type of helicopters are frequently used for corporate and offshore transport.

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