A passenger plane crashed at an airport in the Russian city of Kazan today, killing
all 50 people on board, reports say. The Boeing 737 had taken off from Moscow and was trying to land but
exploded on impact at about 19:20 local time (15:20 GMT), officials said. The Emergencies Ministry said there were 44 passengers and six crew
members on the Tatarstan Airlines flight. Investigators are now looking at whether a technical failure or crew error may
have caused the crash. Among the dead was Irek Minnikhanov, a son of the
president of the Russian Republic of Tatarstan, according to the official
passenger list. Aleksander Antonov, who headed Tatarstan's branch of the Federal Security
Service, was also among the passengers. The victims also included two children. Reports said the pilot had already tried to land several times before crashing. The
crew had said they were not ready to land because of technical problems, Russian
news agencies report. A journalist who said she had flown on the same aircraft from Kazan to Moscow
earlier on Sunday told Russia's Channel TV that there was a strong vibration during
the landing in the Russian capital.
"When we were landing it was not clear whether there was a strong wind, although
in Moscow the weather was fine, or some kind of technical trouble or problem with
the flight," said Lenara Kashafutdinova. "We were blown in different directions, the plane was tossed around. The man
sitting next to me was white as a sheet." The airport in Kazan - the capital of Tatarstan - has been closed since the accident
and is expected to re-open on Monday morning. Kazan lies about 720km (450 miles) east of Moscow. Although some of Russia's biggest airlines now have very good reputations,
frequent crashes by smaller operators mean the country has one of the worst air
safety records in the world. Source - BBC
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