...

Passenger jet crashes in Russia's East Siberia; 11 dead, 4 survive (UPDATE-2)

Other News Materials 3 August 2010 05:53 (UTC +04:00)
An An-24 passenger jet crashed in Russia's Krasnoyarsk Territory in East Siberia on Monday night killing 11 of the 15 people on board, a spokeswoman for the Siberian regional department of the Emergencies Ministry said, RIA Novosti reported.
Passenger jet crashes in Russia's East Siberia; 11 dead, 4 survive (UPDATE-2)

An An-24 passenger jet crashed in Russia's Krasnoyarsk Territory in East Siberia on Monday night killing 11 of the 15 people on board, a spokeswoman for the Siberian regional department of the Emergencies Ministry said, RIA Novosti reported.

The plane, which was flying from the city of Krasnoyarsk to the town of Igarka, crashed some 700 meters (2,300 feet) from the runway during landing at 21:19 Moscow time [17:19 GMT]. There were four crewmembers and 11 passengers, including a child, on board.

The four survivors have been hospitalized and one, passenger Sergei Isakov, is in intensive care with serious burns.

The Russian Air Transport Agency said the other three of the survivors are members of the crew, who are Nikolai Kozlov, the captain of the plane, Igor Kabanov, a co-pilot, and Yevgeny Pertunin, a flight engineer.

The Transport Agency said the plane was landing in adverse weather conditions.

"Before landing, the plane veered to the right of its landing course and collided with the ground in front of the runway," the agency said.

It said a fire broke out at the site of the crash but was put out by firefighters at the airport.

A West Siberian transport investigative committee said preliminary investigation shows that a thick fog near the landing area was the cause for the tragic accident.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Igarka airport said the crash did not obstruct the work of the airport and other planes kept landing and taking off in accordance with their schedule.

Lev Kuznetsov, the governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, decided to cancel his vacation and is currently back on his way to Krasnoyarsk from Moscow, where he was visiting with his family, a spokesman for the governor said.

The airline running the flight, Katekavia, has been running short-haul flights in the region for 14 years. The airline served some 122,000 passengers over 2009.

A spokesman for the Transport Agency said a special commission has been set up to investigate how Katekavia was organizing its flights.

Latest

Latest