RUSSIA: An Aeroflot Boeing 737-500 plane crashed in Russia yesterday, killing all 88 passengers and crew, including 21 foreigners.
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 missing houses.
Russian news agencies and television quoted eyewitnesses who said they saw an explosion before the plane fell to earth and wreckage was spread over a wide area.
Last night, investigating officials were quoted by news agencies as blaming technical faults. "Judging by inspections from the scene . . . the aircraft crash was connected to technical defects of the right engine," Alexander Bastrykin from the Russian prosecutor-general's office investigating the case said, according to agency RIA Novosti.
Fragments of debris covered a section of the Trans-Siberian railway, forcing trains to divert around the Perm area.
Television showed fire fighters walking around the smouldering remains. One of the only recognisable pieces of the aircraft was a white fuselage panel showing the logo of Aeroflot, Russia's national carrier.
"There were 88 people on board, 82 passengers and six crew," said Emergencies Ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova.
"All of them died. There were no casualties on the ground." Seven children were killed in the crash and Aeroflot said 21 foreign nationals were among the dead - nine from Azerbaijan, five from Ukraine and one person each from France, Switzerland, Latvia, the United States, Germany, Turkey and Italy.
Russian news agencies said one of the dead was Gen Gennady Troshev, who in 2000 commanded the Russian army against separatist rebels in the north Caucasus region of Chechnya.
Russian aviation has tried to shake off its patchy safety record and yesterday's incident 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 at the Perm site which they hope will reveal why the 16-year-old Boeing crashed.
Asked at a news conference whether terrorism was a possible cause, Aeroflot boss Valery Okulov said: "That is a question for the [investigation] commission." Four years ago two Chechen suicide bombers blew up two Russian passenger planes within minutes of each other.
Contact with the airliner was lost when it was at an altitude of 1,100m (3,600 feet) while descending to land, an Aeroflot spokeswoman said.
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin sent condolences to the Perm regional governor.
"The government commission will make every effort to investigate the aviation crash fully in order to help the families of the dead," RIA news agency quoted Mr Putin as saying.
Aeroflot, which was 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. - (Reuters)