According to Russian emergency services, 49 people died when a twin-engine turboprop Antonov An-24 passenger plane has crashed in the Far East region of Russia earlier today.
The Angara Airlines An-24 went down at approximately 1pm local time near the city of Tynda in the Amur Region. The aircraft was on a multi-leg domestic flight from the regional hub of Khabarovsk to Blagoveshchensk, and subsequently to Tynda.
Preliminary reports indicate that the plane was carrying 43 passengers, which included five children, in addition to six crew members. The wreckage was located on a wooded mountainside roughly 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) from Tynda’s airport, with sections of the fuselage still ablaze when rescuers arrived.
According to the reports, the aircraft has disappeared from radar during its second landing approach, having canceled the first attempt for reasons that are still not clarified. The weather conditions at that time have not yet been officially confirmed.
Angara Airlines, headquartered in Irkutsk, primarily utilizes Soviet-era turboprop aircraft for regional operations throughout Siberia and the Russian Far East. The An-24 model that was involved in today’s crash first commenced service in the 1960s and continues to be utilized on some of the most remote air routes in the country.
There has been no immediate comment from the airline. A team of investigators along with aviation safety specialists has been sent to the site of the crash.
Footage allegedly captured from the scene and shared on Telegram social network depicted smoke rising from the snow-covered forested slopes, with emergency personnel working amidst the debris scattered across the hillside.
Russia’s Amur Region, which is home to approximately 750,000 inhabitants, shares a border with China and encompasses a vast area of forests, mountains, and rivers. Tynda, with a population of fewer than 30,000 residents, serves as a logistical outpost that was established in the 1970s to support the Baikal-Amur Mainline, which is the country’s second significant east-west rail corridor.
The city is located over 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) from Khabarovsk, a key regional capital and the departure point of the ill-fated flight.
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