Two crew members were killed but all 43 passengers survived after a Russian aircraft crashed and burst into flames during an emergency landing at an airport in Siberia.
The Angara Airlines flight slid off the runway for around a hundred meters (328 ft) after attempting the landing at 10:24 a.m. local time Thursday (10.24 p.m. ET on Wednesday), the airline said.
It collided with a sewage treatment plant before catching fire, local media reported.
Images of the aftermath showed the Soviet-era An-24 jet engulfed in flames. The plane’s inspector pilot, Kolomin Vladimir Ilyich, and the flight mechanic, Bardanov Oleg Vladimirovich, were killed, while a co-pilot and a flight attendant survived.
The flight had been traveling between Ulan-Ude and Nizhneangarsk, two remote towns in eastern Siberia.
“At 10:24 local time, the plane made an emergency landing at the airport in Nizhneangarsk. During landing, the aircraft rolled out from the runway and collided with ground infrastructure objects. As a result of the collision a fire occurred.” Angara Airlines said in a statement.
“All 43 passengers were promptly evacuated. There are no casualties among the passengers.”
Several passengers were taken to hospital and an investigation into the accident was launched Thursday.
The pilot killed had 34 years’ experience and over 15,000 hours of flying, the airline added.
