Over 40 dead as passenger plane crashes in Russian Far East

An Angara Airlines Antonov-24 passenger plane has crashed in the Russian Far East’s Amur region, killing all 43 people on board, state-affiliated news agency Interfax reported on Thursday.

The Amur region search and rescue authorities said that the wreckage of the plane had been located 16 kilometres from the city of Tynda, its final destination, on a mountainside near Kuvykta.

“The plane caught fire on impact. Staff flying over the scene have found no survivors,” according to rescue workers.

The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said that the burning fuselage had been located by a Federal Aviation Agency Mi-8 helicopter.

Preliminary data suggested there were 43 passengers on board, of whom five were children, and six crew members, Amur region Governor Vasily Orlov announced.

The Angara Airlines plane flying from Khabarovsk to Tynda, stopping over at Blagoveshchensk, disappeared off radar screens when completing a second loop to come into land at Tynda Airport, the Prosecutor’s Office for Transport told state-owned news agency TASS.

The Investigative Committee for Transport has opened a criminal case for violation of traffic safety and aircraft operation rules resulting in the death of more than three persons.

The plane was manufactured almost 50 years ago, in 1976, and had recently been deemed airworthy until 2036, TASS noted.

Reuters reported in January 2024 that Angara Airlines and Polar Airlines, both based in Siberia, had appealed to the Russian government to extend the service life for their An-24 and An-26 aircraft. Due to sanctions, they explained, they had no way of updating their fleet.

“By 2030, a quarter of these planes will be written off. It is expensive, it is impossible to afford without state support. We are today working in a market in which there are no alternatives to the An-24 and An-26,” Sergey Zorin, deputy CEO of Angara Airlines, told Reuters.