A passenger plane crashed outside a remote town in the Far East of Russia on Thursday, killing all 49 people on board, officials said. The plane, a
A passenger plane crashed outside a remote town in the Far East of Russia on Thursday, killing all 49 people on board, officials said.
The plane, a Soviet-era Antonov An-24 with 43 passengers and six crew members, was traveling to the small town of Tynda from Blagoveshchensk, near the border with China, when it went off the radar, Vasily Orlov, the regional governor, said in a statement.
Several hours into the rescue operations, investigators confirmed that there were no survivors. Officials have opened an investigation into safety violations, the Investigative Committee, the country’s equivalent of the F.B.I., said in a statement that did not provide further details.
The flight was operated by Angara Airlines, a small carrier based in Irkutsk, eastern Siberia.
The plane lost touch with the control tower after it failed to land and was about to make a second approach to the small airfield in Tynda, regional prosecutors told the Tass news agency. There was no mayday call and no technical failures were reported, it said.
Rescue teams on helicopters have been dispatched to the wooded area outside Tynda, which is difficult to reach by land.
Image
An Antonov An-24 aircraft operated by Angara Airlines in 2014. Officials said that kind of plane was involved in the incident on Thursday.Credit…Marina Lystseva/Reuters
Russia’s ministry of emergency situations and Mr. Orlov, the regional governor, confirmed that the rescuers found the crash site about an hour after the initial reports. The state-owned Rossiya-24 channel said the burning wreckage was located in the woods at the foot of a mountain about 10 miles from Tynda.
Rescue teams were initially unable to make a safe landing and gain access to the wreckage scattered in the forest because of the challenging terrain and strong winds, Russian state news agencies reported.
The plane was reportedly manufactured some 50 years ago and was fully certified, Tass said, citing unnamed aviation officials.
The war in Ukraine has dealt a heavy blow to Russian government plans to rejuvenate the country’s aging fleet of planes, especially those operated by small regional companies. International sanctions bar Russia from buying Western-made planes and parts, and from servicing aircraft abroad.
Aging Soviet-made planes are often plagued with technical failures, especially in far-flung parts of Russia where air traffic is sparse.
Official data from Russia’s aviation agency showed at least three safety incidents involving An-24 planes over the past three years, including two in which the crew had to return to the airport because of minor technical failures.
COMMENTS