Scores dead in Russia plane crash

The plane caught fire as it came in to land in fog at about 7.40pm GMT on Monday, near a road half a mile from the runway at the Besovets airport outside the northern city of Petrozavodsk.

The eight survivors sustained “various injuries,” according to an Emergency Situations Ministry official, and six were rushed to hospital.

The head doctor of the Karelia Republic Hospital, Elissan Shendelovich said his hospital was treating most of the injured survivors.

“We have taken in six patients with combined traumas. Four of them are in grave condition. We are conducting all necessary medical treatments,” Dr Shendelovich said.

“Investigators are looking at several theories behind the crash: a human factor, that is an error of the pilot or the airport ground services, a technical failure in the aircraft or in airport’s equipment and so on,” Russian Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told a Russian news agency.

The aircraft’s black boxes have been recovered.

A Russian news website has posted a full list of the passengers and said a 10-year-old boy named Anton had survived the crash but gave no details about his condition.

Those who died in the crash include Russian Premier League football referee Vladimir Pettai, four foreigners and four dual citizens, according to Interfax news agency.

The crash comes on the eve of the Paris Air Show which Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is due to attend.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who has swapped his Tupolev for a French-made executive jet, in April criticised flaws in domestically built planes and the nation’s poor safety record.

The Tu-134 plane that crashed was operated by the private company RusAir and was travelling from Moscow’s Domodedovo airport.

The Tupolev-134 is a Soviet aircraft whose maiden flight was in 1967. It was unclear when the plane which crashed was made.

In total, 20 of the planes have been involved in fatal incidents.

In March, 2007, six passengers out of 57 died when a Tu-134 crashed about 400 metres short of the runway in Samara in poor weather. The aircraft then bounced and inverted.

Following the accident, the Russian Minister of Transportation, Igor Levitin, claimed that Tu-134s were old and obsolete and should be replaced.

One of the most high-profile Tupolev air disasters in recent times occurred in April 2010 when Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s official Tupolev Tu-154 plane crashed near Smolensk airport in western Russia, killing 96 people including Kaczynski, his wife and a large number of senior officials.

In total, the Tu-154 has been involved in 71 incidents and accidents. In January, fire onboard and subsequent explosion on a Tu-154 while taxiing for take-off caused the death of three passengers at Surgut International airport.

In May, the Russian Air Force confirmed that a Tupolev Tu-154’s control system failed mid-air, causing it to veer and pitch wildly across Moscow’s skies before the pilot could land it safely.

Footage of the Russian Air Force passenger jet losing control shortly after take-off appeared on the internet and showed the pilot struggling to control the ageing Tupolev Tu-154B over Chkalovsky airfield near Moscow before amazingly landing the plane safely.

Russian Air Force Chief Colonel General Alexander Zelin confirmed that the plane suffered a failure of the on-board flight control system: “The plane behaved in such a manner because its control system failed in the air.”

He added: “Everything was all right before takeoff.”