A passenger plane with 28 people aboard crashed yesterday in Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka peninsula. All of them are feared dead.
Officials said, wreckage from the AN-26 aircraft was found on a coastal cliffside and in the sea near the airport in the town of Palana. The plane was on approach for a landing in fog and clouds when it missed a scheduled communication and disappeared from radar.
Search and rescue operations were suspended after night fell and Russian news agencies quoted local sources as saying it appeared that all the passengers and crew had died.
Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said, the plane, en route from regional capital Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to the village of Palana, lost contact with air traffic control during the flight. There were 22 passengers and six crew on board, the Ministry said. Local authorities said, Village Mayor Olga Mokhireva was among the passengers along with four local government officials.
The country’s aviation agency said, the debris was found along the region’s Pacific coast, however, given the geographic features of the landscape, rescue operations are difficult.
It was the country’s third major commercial aviation disaster in the last three and a half years.