Source: AFP Author: 05/27/2008
Subject Concerned: Plane Crash Cargo
An Antonov cargo plane crashed near the city of Chelyabinsk in the Urals region of Russia on May 26, killing all nine people aboard, Interfax news agency reported.
"There were nine people on board. They're all dead," Interfax quoted a spokesman for the emergency situations ministry as saying.
RIA Novosti quoted a ministry spokesman as saying the plane had flown out of Chelyabinsk but was forced to turn back because of heavy smoke in the cockpit.
A witness, Vladimir Zonov, told Echo of Moscow that smouldering debris was scattered up to 300 metres from the crash site.
"We saw a big flame, as if something had exploded. We understood that a plane had crashed ... The plane crashed in a field of wheat," Zonov said.
The An-12, a large cargo plane that can carry around 20 tonnes, reportedly belonged to the Moskoviya charter flight company and was on a route from Chelyabinsk to Perm, also in the Urals.
A company employee contacted by AFP in Moscow said he knew nothing about a crash. Officials from the emergency situations ministry and the ministry of transport could not immediately be reached.
The An-12 was first produced in the Soviet Union in the 1960s.
In July last year, an An-12 dating back to 1964 crashed in Moscow's Domodedovo airport, killing seven people.