Soviet-era passenger plane crashes in Russia's far east killing all 48 on board

By Andrew Osborn and Gleb Stolyarov

MOSCOW (Reuters) -An Antonov An-24 passenger plane carrying 48 people crashed in Russia's far east on Thursday as it was preparing to land, killing everyone on board in an incident that spotlighted the continued use of old, Soviet-era aircraft.

The burning fuselage of the plane, which was made in 1976, was spotted by a search helicopter after it disappeared from radar screens. It had been attempting to land for a second time after failing to touch down on its first approach, the Far Eastern Transport Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.

Operated by the privately owned Siberian regional airline Angara, it had been en route from the city of Blagoveshchensk near the Chinese border to Tynda, an important railway junction in the Amur region. It was carrying 42 passengers, including five children, and six crew.

The regional governor and federal investigators confirmed that everyone on board had been killed.

Investigators said they had opened a criminal case into the suspected violation of air traffic and air transport rules, resulting in the death of more than two people through negligence. The plane had recently passed a technical safety inspection, Russian news agencies reported, and had been involved in four apparently minor incidents since 2018.

The crash is likely to raise new questions about the viability of continuing to fly such old planes in far-flung corners of Russia at a time when Western sanctions have crimped Moscow's ability to access investment and spare parts.

It may also prompt other countries that operate the aircraft to review their fleets. North Korea, Kazakhstan, Laos, Cuba, Ethiopia, Myanmar and Zimbabwe operate the An-24, according to the authoritative RussianPlanes web-portal.

Video shot from a helicopter showed pale smoke rising from the crash site in a densely forested hilly area around 15 km (10 miles) from Tynda. There were no roads to the site and a rescue team had to use heavy machinery to cut a path there.

President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to the families of those killed and held a minute's silence at the start of a government meeting.

At least one Chinese citizen was reported to have been on board and Chinese President Xi Jinping sent his condolences to Putin.

Moscow said it had set up a commission to deal with the aftermath in addition to the criminal and air safety investigations. A representative of Angara said they could not offer any more details.

'FLYING TRACTORS'

Angara is based in the Siberian city of Irkutsk and serves airports in Siberia and Russia's far east. Before Thursday's crash, it operated 10 An-24s built between 1972 and 1976, according to RussianPlanes.

It was one of two Siberian airlines that last year asked the Russian government to extend the service life of the Antonov aircraft, as Russian planemakers scramble to plug the gap left by an exodus of foreign manufacturers.

Nicknamed "flying tractors" by some, the propeller-driven An-24s are regarded as reliable workhorses inside Russia and are well-suited to Siberia as they are able to operate in sub-zero conditions and don't have to land on runways.

But airline executives, pilots and industry experts say the cost of maintaining the Antonovs - which make up a fraction of Russia's fleet of over 1,000 passenger planes - has increased after Western sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine hit investment and access to parts.

Almost 1,340 An-24 planes were built in the Soviet Union. Eighty-eight have now been lost because of crashes and 65 because of serious incidents without casualties, and 75 are currently in operation, according to data from the RussianPlanes web-portal and Reuters analysis.

Their age has long been of concern. Dmitry Medvedev, then president, proposed grounding Russia's An-24 fleet in 2011 after one of them crashed in Siberia, killing seven people.

Many of the planes are due to be retired from service in the coming years, but mass production of the new Ladoga aircraft, the same class as the An-24, is not due to begin until 2027 at the earliest.

(Reporting by Andrew Osborn, Gleb Stolyarov and Marina Bobrova; Additional reporting by Anton Kolodyazhnyy; Writing by Andrew Osborn and Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Louise Heavens, Frances Kerry, Rachna Uppal and Timothy Heritage)