88 perish in Russian plane crash
15 September, 2008
PERM, Russia: An Aeroflot Boeing 737-500 plane crashed in Russia on Sunday, killing all 88 passengers and crew, including 21 foreign nationals. The passenger jet was flying from Moscow to Perm near the Ural Mountains, when it plunged into scrubland and railway tracks on the edge of the city narrowly short of houses.
Fragments of debris covered a section of Russiaís main EastWest Railway, forcing its closure, Russian media reported. Television showed fire fighters walking around the smouldering, shattered remains of the plane. One of the only recognisable pieces of the aircraft was a white fuselage panel showing the logo of Aeroflot, Russiaís national carrier.
Rescue workers wearing either florescent jackets or military uniforms sifted through rubble. There was no suggestion of an attack or sabotage. ìThere were 88 people on board, 82 passengers and six crew,î said Emergencies Ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova.
ìAll of them died. There were no casualties on the ground.î Aeroflot said 21 foreign nationals were among those killed — nine from Azerbaijan, five from Ukraine and one person each from France, Switzerland, Latvia, the United States, Germany, Turkey and Italy.
Seven children died in the crash and Russian news agencies said one of the dead was General Gennady Troshev, who in 2000 commanded the Russian army against militants in the north Caucasus region of Chechnya.
Russian aviation has tried to shake off its patchy safety record and Sundayís accident was its worst crash since 170 people died in August 2006 when a TU-154 plane crashed in Ukraine on a flight from the Black Sea resort of Anapa to St Petersburg. Investigators have found two recording boxes from the site which they hoped will reveal why the 16-year-old Boeing crashed.
Contact with the airliner was lost when it was at an altitude of 1,100 metres (3,600 ft) while descending to land, said an Aeroflot spokeswoman. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was briefed on the crash, news agencies quoted the Kremlin press service as saying, and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sent his condolences to the Perm regional governor.
ìThe government commission will make every effort to investigate the aviation crash fully in order to help the families of the dead,î RIA Novosti news agency quoted Putin as saying in the note. Aeroflot, a debt-ridden airline in the 1990s, when it had a fleet of mainly Soviet-built planes, has transformed itself into an image conscious, profit-making company with global ambitions.
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