Ten people, mostly Russian amateur parachutists, died today when a small plane they were planning to jump from crashed shortly after take-off.
The single-prop Antonov-2 biplane carried 11 sky-divers and three crew when it nose-dived immediately after taking off from a small airfield east of the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, an emergencies ministry spokesman for the Krasnoyarsk region said.
He said 10 people died in the crash and four others were taken to hospital in a grave condition.
Antonov-2, nicknamed 'cropduster' in Russia, is the world's largest biplane. Its rugged build allows it to take off from unpaved runways. The Soviet Union widely used the Antonovs to train young parachutists.