At least 44 people were killed on Wednesday when a Russian jet carrying hockey players to their first match of the season crashed on takeoff in the latest blow to the country’s air safety record.
The Yak-42 passenger jet took off from Yaroslavl airport about 300 km northeast of Moscow just as a two-day political forum expected to be attended by President Dmitry Medvedev began in the capital.
A source told Interfax that the plane suddenly start listing to the left and crashed about 500m away from the Tunoshna airport.
“According to the latest data, there were 45 people on board — 37 passengers and eight crew. Forty-four people died in the crash and one person survived,” a police official told the RIA Novosti news agency.
The local emergencies ministry said the jet was taking members of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team to the Belarus capital Minsk for the their first match of the 2011-2012 season.
The team is trained by a Canadian national and has several foreign players on the roster posted on its website.
Two accidents involving Tu-134 and An-24 jets this summer that killed a total 54 people prompted Medvedev to call for most of the aircraft to be retired by January 1 and the rest taken out in subsequent months.
But that move was followed by a series of smaller air accidents as well as a Volga River boat disaster that killed 122 people who were taking a pleasure cruise.
The accidents have tarnished Medvedev’s vision of a modern Russia that he promotes in messages ahead of presidential elections next year that can be also contested by Vladimir Putin — his more nationalist mentor and prime minister.
Medvedev was due to speak at the forum on Thursday and sent his top political adviser Vladislav Surkov to the scene of the disaster.
A Kremlin spokesperson said Medvedev himself would arrive in Yaroslavl later on Wednesday.
Conference participants also held a minute of silence while the country’s hockey season kicked off with a somber message from the deputy head of Gazprom — the company that sponsors Russia’s Continental Hockey League (KHL).