- Antonov An-28turboprop plane crashes in Russia’s Siberia.
- The crashed aircraft was located by Emergencies Ministry’s rescue helicopters.
- All 19 people on board the crashed plane survived hard landing.
Russian-made Antonov An-28 twin-engine turboprop passenger plane, operated by the Siberian Light Aviation (SiLA), a small airline offering regional flights in Russia’s Siberia, went missing while flying from the town of Kedrovoye to the city of Tomsk.
Shortly after disappearing from radars, the crashed aircraft was located by Emergencies Ministry’s rescue helicopters that were dispatched to search for it.
According to the ministry officials, all 19 people on board the crashed plane had survived the hard landing.
The plane’s captain broke his leg, but no passengers or crew members sustained serious injuries, and were now being evacuated from the crash site.
According to the Siberian Light Aviation airline CEO Andrey Bogdanov believes, the engines of the crashed An-28 plane could have failed due to extreme weather conditions.
Today’s crash comes less than two weeks after a similar aircraft, an Antonov An-26, crashed into a cliff in poor visibility conditions on the remote Kamchatka peninsula in Russia’s Far East, killing all 28 people on board.
An Antonov-28, the same type of plane that went missing over Tomsk, crashed in a Kamchatka forest in 2012, killing 10 people. Investigators said both pilots were drunk at the time of the crash.
Russian civil aviation safety standards have somewhat improved in recent years but accidents, especially involving older aircraft in remote regions, are not uncommon.
