Investigators probe Ukraine plane crash which killed 170

Investigators today combed through the wreckage of a Russian passenger jet that crashed into a Ukrainian field during a severe thunderstorm, killing all 170 people aboard.

The flight recorders of the Pulkovo Airlines’ Tu-154 have not been found. The recorders could explain the cause of the third fatal crash this year of a Russian passenger airliner.

Emergency officials said preliminary information suggested that weather caused the crash about 28 miles from the city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

The plane was flying to St. Petersburg from the Russian Black Sea resort of Anapa – a holiday destination popular with families, flying over Ukraine when it ran into trouble.

“Right now, it is difficult to determine the cause of the accident,” Ukraine’s Transport Minister Mykola Rudkovsky said in televised remarks. He noted, however, that weather had been severe, and suggested the plane might have flown into a cyclone.

Ukrainian officials said a storm with heavy winds, driving rain and flashes of lightning was raging through the region at the time. Russian Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova, citing information from her Ukrainian counterparts, said the plane was likely ht by lightning.

The pilot asked to make an emergency landing before disappearing from the radar screens at around 2.30pm (12.30pm Irish time), said Mykhaylo Korsakov, spokesman for the Donetsk department of Emergency Situations Ministry.

Rudkovsky also said that the pilot had asked for permission to change course by about 12 miles to the east, and was given permission.

The wreckage was found about an hour after the plane disappeared from radar screens in Sukha Balka, a village about 400 miles east of Kiev.

Under sunny skies today, fragments of the plane – its engines, parts of the landing gear, the nose and chunks of the fuselage – were scattered around fields and a small forest. Authorities had stretched red tape around the area as investigators hunted for the flight recorders.

Vadim Seryogin, head of the team from the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry, said Russian investigators, prosecutors and security service officials were at the site. Authorities planned to begin collecting the bodies later today, and relatives were expected to visit the crash scene.

Of the 170 people on board, 45 were children, Pulkovo Airlines deputy director Anatoly Samoshin told reporters at the St. Petersburg airport. The list of passengers, most of whom were from St Petersburg, appeared to include many families.

The crash was the third major incident involving Russia’s aviation industry this year. It came less than two months after an Airbus A-310 of the Russian airline S7 skidded off a runway and burst into flames on July 9 in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, killing 124 people.

On May 3, an A-320 of the Armenian airline Armavia crashed into the Black Sea while trying to land in the Russian resort city of Sochi in rough weather, killing all 113 people aboard.

Russian-made Tu-154s are widely used by Russian airlines for many regional flights.