A Russian airliner plunged into a wooded meadow in Siberia and burned up after unsuccessful attempts to land in the city of Irkutsk Wednesday, killing all 145 people on board, said reports.
Aviation officials were examining the two black box flight recorders from the Tu-154 jet, said Vasily Yurchuk, spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry. Another spokesman said 143 bodies or fragments of bodies had been found, said The Associated Press.
Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu, who flew to the site, said the plane's three engines may have failed for unknown reasons, Russian television reports said.
"It is so hard to comprehend how it could happen ... based on an elementary knowledge of aerodynamics. It is a weird accident," Shoigu told reporters on the meadow, which was littered with smoking fuselage. He said the plane was at an altitude of 2,800 feet when it suddenly made a 180-degree turn and crashed.
According to the AP, security officials did not rule out a terrorist act and were searching for signs of explosives, the Interfax news agency said.
The 15-year-old plane, belonging to the Vladivostokavia airline, crashed about 18 miles outside Irkutsk, which is about 2,600 miles east of Moscow. The area lies between Irkutsk and enormous Lake Baikal.
There were no reports of casualties on the ground.
The plane was carrying 136 passengers and nine crew members, Yurchuk said. But officials said the number aboard could be higher because of Russian airlines' widespread practice of taking unticketed passengers.
Vladimir Rabezhin, deputy manager of Vladivostokavia, said there were 12 foreigners, probably from China, aboard the airplane, ITAR-Tass said. The passenger list was not to be made public until later in the day – Albawaba.com
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