The key facts
- A neural network processed more than 90,000 drone images from over 100 hours of flights; drones were used six times.
- Part of the search activities in Krasnoyarsk Krai fell through due to high bear activity, Liza Alert chairman Grigory Sergeev said.
- The Usoltsev family went missing in September last year in the Kuturchi district; investigators consider both an accident and a criminal scenario possible.
Neural network processes drone footage
More than 90,000 images of the Krasnoyarsk taiga taken by drones during the search for the missing Usoltsev family have been processed by a neural network. This was reported to RIA Novosti by the regional Liza Alert search team; Gazeta.Ru is also carrying the information. According to the searchers, during the operation the drones spent over 100 hours in the air. After machine processing, the materials were reviewed by an image analysis group. The drone system was deployed in the search six times; the team noted that it had performed well.
Bears and cold complicate the search
Earlier, Liza Alert chairman Grigory Sergeev reported that part of the planned search activities for the family in Krasnoyarsk Krai could not be carried out due to high bear activity. Despite this, the search work continues. According to Sergeev, with the onset of cold weather it has become harder to search for the missing in mountainous terrain, and finding new traces of the family remains an extremely difficult task. On October 24, volunteers from the team stated that the search will continue until the missing are found.
What is known about the disappearance
The Usoltsev family went missing in September last year during a hiking trip in the Kuturchi district of Krasnoyarsk Krai. According to Gazeta.Ru, investigators believe the family may have suffered an accident; specialists found no evidence that the tourists disappeared deliberately. The trip was planned and arranged in advance, but a criminal scenario is not ruled out either. Some suggest the Usoltsevs may have left for another country or joined a cult. Earlier, an expert pointed out a strange detail in the circumstances of the disappearance.
Significance for search operations
Applying a neural network to tens of thousands of aerial photographs shows how technology is changing the methodology of volunteer searches: manually reviewing such a volume of material would take far longer, and the drones, by the team's own assessment, have already proven their effectiveness six times. For the families of the missing, this means that the search, despite weather and natural obstacles — from bear activity to the cold in mountainous terrain — is not officially being wound down. At the same time, nothing is still known about the whereabouts of the Usoltsevs, and investigators are considering several scenarios, from an accident to a criminal one.
