DEATH IN THE SNOW
Russia airliner crash kills 71
AN AIRLINER crashed outside Moscow minutes after taking off, killing all 71 people aboard Sunday.
The Saratov Airlines An-148 lost radio contact moments after it departed Domodedovo Airport about 2:20 p.m. local time, according to Russian news agencies.
“The crew and passengers had no chance of surviving,” an unidentified official told the Interfax news agency.
Fragments of the Russian jet and body parts were discovered in a snowy field in Stepanovskoye, about 25 miles southeast of the Russian capital.
The 65 passengers and six crew members were headed for Orsk, a southern Russian city near the border with Kazakhstan, the Tass news agency reported.
All the passengers on Saratov Airlines Flight 703 were from the city and surrounding Orenburg province, regional government spokesman Sergei Sheremetsinsky told Interfax.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said it had opened a criminal probe to look for possible safety violations or reckless behavior.
Initial reports indicate the crew didn’t report any problems with the plane before it went down.
The An-148 was developed by Ukraine’s Antonov company in the early 2000s and was manufactured in both Ukraine and Russia.
The plane that crashed had been flying since 2010 but was out of service for two years until Februrary 2017 because of a shortage of parts.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full investigation into what caused the crash, and offered his condolences to the families of those killed.
“The president instructed the government to create a special commission in connection with the plane crash,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Tass.
Putin put off a trip to Sochi in southern Russia to oversee the recovery efforts.
In Washington, the White House said it “is deeply saddened by the tragic deaths of those on board Saratov Airlines Flight 703.”
The crash is Russia’s second major air disaster in a little over a year. A military plane bound for Syria crashed into the Black Sea shortly after taking off from Sochi on Christmas Day 2016. All 92 people aboard the flight were killed.