Divers search for victims of Russian crash
Soviet-built plane was headed to Syria from Sochi with 92 passengers on board
SOCHI, RUSSIA— Backed by ships, helicopters and drones, Russian rescue teams searched Sunday for victims after a Russian plane carrying 92 people to Syria crashed into the Black Sea shortly after takeoff. Investigators said they are looking into every possible cause for the crash, including a terror attack.
All 84 passengers and eight crew members on board the Soviet-built Tu-154 plane operated by the Russian military are believed to have died when it crashed two minutes after taking off in good weather from the southern Russian city of Sochi.
More than 3,000 people — including over 100 divers flown in from across Russia — worked from 32 ships and several helicopters to search the crash site, the Defence Ministry said. Drones and submersibles were also being used to help spot bodies and debris. Powerful spotlights were brought in so the search could continue around the clock.
Emergency crews found fragments of the plane about 1.5 kilometres from shore. By Sunday evening, rescue teams had recovered 11 bodies and Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said fragments of other bodies were also found.
Asked if a terror attack was a possibility, Sokolov said investigators were looking into every possible reason for the crash.
The plane belonging to the Defence Ministry was taking its world famous choir, the Alexandrov Ensemble, to a New Year’s concert at Hemeimeem airbase in Syria’s coastal province of Latakia.
Those on board also included nine Russian journalists and a Russian doctor famous for her work in war zones.
Russian President Vladimir Putin went on television to declare Monday a nationwide day of mourning.
“We will conduct a thorough inves- tigation into the reasons and will do everything to support the victims’ families,” Putin said.
The Black Sea search area — which covered 10 square kilometres — was made more difficult by underwater currents that carried debris and body fragments into the open sea.
Sokolov said the plane’s flight recorders did not have the radio beacons common in more modern air- craft, so locating them on the seabed was going to be challenging.
Before Sokolov spoke to reporters in Sochi, senior Russian lawmakers had ruled out a terror attack, arguing that the military plane was tightly secured.
But some experts noted that the crew’s failure to report a malfunction pointed at a possible terror attack.
“Possible malfunctions . . . certain- ly wouldn’t have prevented the crew from reporting them,” Vitaly Andreyev, a former senior Russian air traffic controller, told RIA Novosti, adding that it points at an “external impact.”
Still, since 1994 there have been 17 major plane crashes involving the Tu-154 that have killed over 1,760 people. Most resulted from human error.