A Russian passenger plane crashed on landing in the Siberian city of Irkutsk early today, killing around 150 passengers, Russian news agencies reported.

THE two Chechen women suspected of blowing up two Russian airliners last month were briefly detained by airport policemen, but paid bribes to get on to the flights.

Suspicions grew today that terrorists were to blame for twin airline crashes, with a top official saying terrorism was the main theory and many Russians insisting the double disaster could not be explained by mere coincidence.

Russian officials are examining the wreckage of two crashed planes today in an effort to determine whether a terrorist attack caused the near-simultaneous disasters that killed all 89 people aboard.

A Russian passenger jet crashed and another apparently broke up in the air almost simultaneously after they took off from the same airport, raising fears of a double terrorist atrocity.