At least 49 passengers, including 5 children, were feared dead as a Russian plane crashed in the country’s far east region of Amur on Thursday.
The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at around 1:00 pm local time (0400 GMT).A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16 kilometres (10 miles) from Tynda.
Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area.
Rescuers in the helicopter saw no evidence of survivors, local rescuers said, as the Amur region’s civil defence agency said it was dispatching a ground team to the scene.“At the moment, 25 people and five units of equipment have been dispatched, and four aircraft with crews are on standby,” it said.
According to TASS news agency, an error by the plane’s crew while landing amid poor visibility is one of the possible reasons for the crash.
Regional Governor Vasily Orlov said that, according to preliminary data, there were 43 passengers, including five children, and six crew members on board.
The Emergencies Ministry put the number of people on board somewhat lower, at about 40. Flying in Russia can be particularly dangerous in the vast country’s isolated hinterland, such as the Arctic and the far east, where weather conditions are frequently extreme.
While Russian aviation safety standards have improved in recent years, accidents, especially involving ageing planes in far-flung regions, are not uncommon.In 2021, an ageing Antonov An-26 transport plane crashed in the Russian far east, killing six people. All 28 people on board an Antonov An-26 twin-engine turboprop also died in a crash in Kamchatka in July that year.
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