Russian air safety officials said today that the crash of a commercial airline in May that killed 113 people was due to pilot error.

An airliner careered off a rain-slicked runway, ploughed into adjacent garages and burst into flames in the Siberian city of Irkutsk early today.

A Russian passenger plane skidded off a rain-soaked Siberian runway early today, ploughed through a concrete barrier and burst into flames killing at least 124 people.

Russian searchers have recovered the cockpit voice recorder from an Armenian passenger jet that crashed in the Black Sea nearly three weeks ago, killing 113 passengers and crew.

GRIEF-STRICKEN relatives of the 113 victims of a Black Sea plane crash scrutinised photographs of bodies pulled from the water in hopes of identifying their loved ones yesterday as search-and-rescue boats plied the waters offshore.

Hundreds of grief-stricken relatives of the 113 victims of a Black Sea plane crash gathered today outside morgues in two hotels in the southern Russian resort of Sochi, preparing for the grim task of identifying the dead.

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.

Flight recorders from the wreckage of two planes that crashed almost simultaneously in Russia have not revealed reliable information on the causes of the double disaster, a top Russian official said.