Russian plane with 49 aboard crashes, no survivors

A Russian passenger plane with 49 people on board crashed in the country’s far east on Thursday and initial reports suggested there were no survivors, emergency services officials said.

“Fifteen kilometre from Tynda, the wreckage of an An-24 was found on a slope. The plane was destroyed,” the Russian emergencies ministry was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

Earlier, it was reported that the An-24 passenger plane had gone missing in the Amur region.

Crew error during landing in poor visibility is being considered a possible cause of the passenger plane crash, according to Tass news agency.

The An-24 plane took off from Khabarovsk as scheduled on Thursday at 7.36am local time (00.36 Moscow time), according to the airport’s press service. The aircraft was operating on the Khabarovsk–Blagoveshchensk–Tynda route but vanished from radar and stopped responding to calls just a few kilometres from Tynda airport.

“The An-24 plane was flying along the Khabarovsk-Blagoveshchensk-Tynda route. It failed to pass security checks near its final destination. There is no contact with it,” the emergencies ministry earlier said.

The burning fuselage of the plane, which was from the Soviet era and was nearly 50 years old, was spotted on the ground by a helicopter and rescue crews were rushing to the scene.

Unverified video, shot from a helicopter and posted on social media, appeared to show that the plane had come down in a densely forested area. The plane, whose tail number showed it was built in 1976, was operated by a Siberia-based airline called Angara.

It was en route from the city of Blagoveshchensk to Tynda and dropped off radar screens while approaching Tynda, a remote town in the Amur region bordering China.

Regional governor Vasily Orlov said on Telegram that initial reports indicated the Siberia-based airline called Angara was carrying 43 passengers, including five children, along with six crew members onboard.

“All necessary forces and means have been deployed to search for the plane,” he wrote.

Interfax reported that the plane vanished during a second landing attempt, after an initial approach to Tynda airport was unsuccessful.

A source was quoted as saying by Tass news agency: “An An-24 operated by Angara Airlines failed to make contact at a designated checkpoint a few kilometres from Tynda Airport.”

Tynda is located approximately 6,600km east of Moscow.

Debris from the plane was found on a hill around 15km (10 miles) from Tynda, the Interfax news agency quoted emergency service officials as saying.

"During the search operation, a Mi-8 helicopter belonging to Rossaviatsiya discovered the fuselage of the aircraft, which was on fire," Yuliya Petina, an emergency services official, wrote on Telegram.

"Rescuers continue to make their way to the scene of the accident".

Authorities announced an investigation into the crash.

Last year in September, a Robinson R66 helicopter with three people on board went missing in Russia’s Amur region during an unregistered flight over the Zeya district in the northeastern part of the Amur region.