Plane falls minutes before landing
Last night a TU-134 plane flying from Moscow to Petrozavodsk crashed in Karelia. The RusAir airlines plane made a bad landing and burned a little far from a residential area on the highway that was a kilometer away from the Petrozavodsk airport. Eyewitnesses immediately called firefighters.
As Interfax reported, only 8 out of the 52 passengers survived the plane crash and one of them was a child. Doctors say seven of the injured are in an extremely critical situation, and 9 of the 44 victims were staff members. There are 7 injured children. Only one stewardess has survived the crash, and doctors are currently fighting to save her life.
The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations has already posted the names of the victims on its website. Among them are football commentator Vladimir Peta and a man of Armenian origin, citizen of Ukraine, Vahram S. Simovyan.
The victims' bodies have been transferred to hospitals in Petrozavodsk to clarify their identity. The families of the victimes and the injured will also be transferred from Moscow in the afternoon today.
The black boxes have already been identified. According to experts' initial analysis, TU-134 landed in bad weather, hit the ground, split into parts and burned. RusAir assures that the plane was in good condition before the flight.
A criminal case has been instigated under the article of violation of rules for airplane exploitation.
