A Russian passenger plane carrying 71 people crashed near Moscow on Sunday (Feb 11) minutes after taking off, killing everyone on board in one of the country’s worst ever aviation disasters.Investigators said the Antonov An-148 plane crashed in the Ramensky district on the outskirts of Moscow at 2.48pm (7.28pm Singapore time) after taking off from Domodedovo airport in the capital.
“Sixty-five passengers and six crew members were on board, and all of them died,” Russia’s office of transport investigations said in a statement. Three children were among the fatalities on a list published by Russian authorities.
The flight was operated by the domestic Saratov Airlines and was headed for Orsk, a city in the Ural mountains.
Debris and human remains were spread over a radius of a kilometer from the crash site, investigators said.
They said they had opened a criminal case into the incident. Among the possible causes they listed were weather conditions, human error and the plane’s technical condition. No distress signals had been received from the crew.The plane, manufactured in 2010, had been carrying 65 passengers and six crew. It disappeared from radar screens shortly after taking off from Moscow’s Domodedovo airport.