No survivors in Russian passenger plane crash in Eastern Amur Region, say authorities

A passenger plane carrying 49 people crashed in Russia's far eastern region of Amur on Thursday, authorities said. Rescuers found the debris of the Antonov-24 passenger plane that disappeared from radar earlier in country's far east, the emergencies ministry said Thursday. All 49 aboard the plane are dead, according to Russian news agency TASS.

Regional governor Vasily Orlov said that according to preliminary data, there were 43 passengers, including five children, and six crew members on board.

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The aircraft, a twin-engine Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar, regional governor Vassily Orlov said on Telegram.

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"An Mi-8 helicopter operated by Rosaviatsiya (Russia's civil aviation authority) has spotted the burning fuselage of the aircraft," Russia's emergencies ministry said on Telegram.

The mishap has been attributed to crew error during landing in poor visibility.

The local emergencies ministry said the plane, operated by a Siberia-based airline called Angara, dropped off radar screens while approaching its destination of Tynda, a town in the Amur region bordering China.

A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane, which was from the Soviet era and was nearly 50 years old, on a mountainside about 16 kilometres (10 miles) from Tynda. The helicopter saw no evidence of survivors from above, local rescuers said.

A video of the crash site was issued by the Russian Investigative Committee. Take a look:

The Amur region's civil defence agency said it was dispatching rescuers to the scene. "At the moment, 25 people and five units of equipment have been dispatched, and four aircraft with crews are on standby," it said.

This is the third major plane crash incident in two months, after one in India and another in Bangladesh. On July 21, a Bangladeshi Air Force fighter jet crashed into the Milestone School and College in Dhaka’s Diabari area, killing at least 20 people and injuring more than 170.

Just over a month earlier, on June 12, tragedy struck India when an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed into a medical college complex shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad. Bound for London with 242 passengers, the flight lost thrust shortly after takeoff. The crash killed all but one of those on board, and 19 others on the ground — bringing the death toll to 279.

[With inputs from Reuters]