Failure of all three engines caused the crash of a Russian passenger aircraft in which more than 140 people were killed, Russian Emergencies Minister Mr Sergei Shoigu said today.
All 144 or 145 passengers and crew - death tolls varied - aboard thethree-engined Tupolev TU-154 jet were killed when the aircraft crashed near Irkutsk in southern Siberia yesterday.
The aircraft was on a flight from Yekaterinburg, in the Urals, toVladivostok in the Far East and had been due to make a briefstopover at Irkutsk.
The two black-box flight recorders have been recovered in good condition.
Two hundred rescue workers are searching the wreckage, andso far the bodies of 42 passengers have been recovered, NTVtelevision reported.
Russian President Mr Vladimir Putin has set up a commission to investigate the crash.
Earlier, an executive with the Vladivostokavia regional airline, which owned the aircraft, said the crash could have due to "a breakdown of the plane's fuel transmission system" that wouldhave caused an explosion.
The TU-154 is no longer in production, having been discontinuedin 1996, but more than 1,000 are in service around theworld, NTVsaid.
The crash was one of the worst in Russia's aviation historyand the fourth accident involving a Russian TU-154 since 1994, ITAR-TASSsaid.
AFP