A Soviet-era passenger plane has crashed in Russia’s far east as it prepared to land, killing all 48 people onboard.
The flight, operated by Siberia-based Angara Airlines, and departing from the city of Blagoveshchensk, vanished from radar on Thursday and lost contact with air traffic controllers while approaching its destination of Tynda, a remote town in the Amur region bordering China.
Parts of the burning wreckage of the Antonov An-24 plane, which was nearly 50 years old, were discovered about 9 miles (15km) from Tynda airport on a mountainside, authorities said.
Russian media published footage showing thick smoke rising above a dense forest at the crash site. There were no roads to the site and a rescue team numbering more than 100 people had to use heavy machinery to cut a path there.
There were 42 passengers, including five children, and six crew members on board.
Investigators said they had opened a criminal case into the suspected violation of air traffic and air transport rules, resulting in the death of more than two people through negligence.
Vasily Orlov, the regional governor, offered his condolences to the families of those who died and declared three days of mourning, ordering flags to be lowered to half mast.
Malfunction and human error were being considered as causes of the crash, the country’s transport investigative committee said.
The An-24 is a twin turboprop regional aircraft designed by the Soviet Union’s Antonov Design Bureau in the late 1950s. Known for its ruggedness and ability to operate from unpaved runways, it was widely used in remote regions of Russia and central Asia. The Angara plane that crashed was built in 1976.
The crash on Thursday marks Russia’s first fatal passenger aviation incident since July 2021, when a Petropavlovsk‑Kamchatsky An‑26 went down near Palana, killing all 28 people onboard.
Russia has seen a rise in non-fatal mechanical failures on passenger planes since the start of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, as western sanctions have damaged its aviation industry, with dozens of foreign jets seized and access to vital spare parts cut off.
Russia has struggled to replace its outdated Soviet-era fleet and its modern western aircraft such as Boeing and Airbus with domestically produced alternatives.
In 2023, representatives of several regional airlines appealed for an extension of the An-24’s service life, citing difficulties replacing the ageing aircraft because of sanctions.
An analysis by the Russian independent outlet Agentstvo shows that the aircraft had experienced at least two technical malfunctions since 2022. In May 2022, the generator failed mid-flight, and in March this year, the crew was forced to request a return to the parking area owing to radio communication problems during a flight from Irkutsk to Kirensk.
Reuters contributed to this report
