Plane crash not thought to be result of deliberate act

SOCHI: Thousands of rescuers were searching for bodies in the Black Sea as Russia marked a day of mourning yesterday following the crash of a Syria-bound military plane carrying 92 people.

The Tu-154 jet, whose passengers included more than 60 members of the Red Army Choir who were heading to entertain Russian troops in Syria for the New Year, went down off the resort city of Sochi shortly after takeoff on Sunday.

The first 10 bodies have been flown in to Moscow amid a national outpouring of grief.

Investigators have yet to confirm the cause of the crash, but Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov told a televised briefing yesterday that authorities do not believe the plane was taken out by a terrorist attack.

“There could be various causes,” he said, adding that active theories ranged from human error to a problem with the fuel. “Currently the main versions do not include an act of terror,” he added.

More than 3,000 workers laboured through the night, racing to find the remaining bodies and debris, including the flight recorders, before the currents carry them further away.

The search operation included 39 vessels covering more than 100sq km, with planes, helicopters and drones searching from above and deep-water equipment and divers hunting below the surface.

“I think we will be able to find the location of the plane on the bottom of the Black Sea today,” Viktor Bondarev, the commander of the Russian air force, told Russian agencies.

“When we find the plane, we will raise the flight recorders to the surface. We know they are located in the tail and I am sure that the tail was damaged the least,” he said.

“Eleven bodies and 154 [body] fragments were found over the first day,” defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a briefing.

“The search is complicated by the large depth range and the sea bottom relief characteristics in the presumed crash area,” he said.

Along with the first ten bodies, 86 body parts were flown to the capital for DNA analysis, he added.

The jet went down minutes after taking off at 5.25am on Sunday from Sochi.