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06-07-2021
MOSCOW/ KAMOHATKA: A passenger plane with 28 people on board crashed into the sea on Tuesday off Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula as it was preparing to land, RIA news agency reported on Tuesday.
The plane, an Antonov AN-26 twin-engined turboprop, was en route from regional capital Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to Palana, a village in northern Kamchatka, when it lost contact with air traffic control, Russia’s emergencies ministry said.
Several ships were en route to the crash site, RIA cited emergency services as saying.
There were 22 passengers and 6-crew on board, the ministry said. Village mayor Olga Mokhireva was among the passengers, the TASS agency quoted local authorities as saying.
The weather in the area was cloudy at the time, Interfax news agency said, quoting the local meteorology centre.
The plane belonged to a company called Kamchatka Aviation Enterprise, and was built in 1982.
A total of 14 people were on board and 10 of them were killed. Both pilots, who were among the dead, were found to have alcohol in their blood, TASS reported.
Russia, once notorious for plane accidents, has improved its air traffic safety record in recent years but poor aircraft maintenance and lax safety standards still persist, and the country has seen several deadly air accidents in recent years.
The last major air accident took place in May 2019, when a Sukhoi Superjet belonging to the flag carrier airline Aeroflot crash-landed and caught fire on the runway of a Moscow airport, killing 41 people.
In February 2018, a Saratov Airlines AN-148 aircraft crashed near Moscow shortly after take-off, killing all 71 people on board. An investigation later concluded that the accident was caused by human error.
Russia also frequently experiences non-fatal air incidents that result in re-routed flights and emergency landings, usually stemming from technical issues.
In August 2019, a Ural Airlines flight carrying more than 230 people made a miracle landing in a Moscow corn field after a flock of birds were sucked into the engines shortly after take-off.
In February 2020, a Utair Boeing 737 carrying 100 people crash-landed on its belly in northern Russia after its landing system malfunctioned. All of the flight’s passengers and its crew survived. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
