Video: the first images of the wreckage of the plane that crashed in the Russian peninsula of Kamchatka

Russian rescue teams on Tuesday located the place where an airliner crashed with 28 people on board which had disappeared from the radars a few hours before, as he was about to land on the remote Kamchatka peninsula, in the far east of the country.

The search was halted at dusk, sources from the Emergency Situations Ministry said, but hopes of finding survivors were slim to noneRussian news agencies reported.

The governor of Kamchatka, an immense area sparsely populated but appreciated by tourists for its volcanoes and its wild nature, the said fuselage was found in the coastal area of ​​the Sea of ​​Okhotsk.

“Obviously there was a disaster during the landing“He said in a video posted on the regional government website.

The Russian air transport agency, Rosaviátsia, said earlier in a statement that the remains were found at 9:06 p.m. (9:06 a.m. GMT) but that the work of rescuers “she was hampered by the geography of the land ”.

The aircraft, a Soviet-designed Antonov An-26, flew from the region’s capital, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky., to the coastal town of Palana when it stopped broadcasting at 3:40 p.m. (03:40 GMT), he told the agency. AFP the regional fiscal Valentina Glazova.

Authorities explained that communication was lost nine kilometers from the airport and 10 minutes before the scheduled landing time. The Antonov was operated by a small local company.

Most of the passengers were from Palana, a town of less than 3,000 inhabitants.. Among them the head of the municipal administration and a child.

Russian media released a video from the Ministry of Emergency Situations showing the scene of the accident and in which you can see a large black spot on a cliff.

The Russian Pacific Fleet, cited by the agency Interfax, he reported that the fuselage was found in several pieces on top of a hill and in the sea, while Russian agencies said, citing rescuers, that the plane he tried to land twice in thick fog and strong winds.

The Rosaviátsia aviation agency, quoted by Russian media, said there was fog at the airport and that “The mountains of the region were hidden by the clouds“When the plane approached.

Palana had already been the scene of a fatal accident in September 2012, when, in the middle of the fog, the crew of an Antonov An-28 did not follow the approach procedures and the plane crashed, killing 10 of the 14 occupants. Alcohol was found in the blood of the two crew members.

According to data from specialized sites, the Antonov An-26 which went missing on Tuesday entered service 38 years ago, in 1982.

The An-26, designed to be the transport aircraft of the Soviet military forces and their allies, was manufactured from 1969 to 1986 and was also developed for civilian use. He suffered numerous fatal accidents, the last in Kazakhstan in March, in which four soldiers died.

In September 2020, 26 people, mostly students of a military academy, were killed in an accident near Kharkiv, to the east of Ukraine. A Russian An-26 serviceman also crashed when it landed in March 2018 at the Russian base in Hmeimin at Syria, killing the 39 soldiers on board.

Russia, long known for its plane crashes, has significantly improved its aviation safety since the 2000s, when the main companies abandoned their old Soviet devices for more modern ones. But lack of maintenance and lax safety regulations remain a problem, and accidents are common, especially in remote parts of the country.

(With information from AFP)

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