9 dead in Russian cargo plane crash

Moscow – A cargo plane crashed in Russia’s southern Siberia, killing nine people onboard, authorities said Thursday.

“The plane en route from Novosibirsk Yeltsovka airport (in southern Siberia) crashed during landing in Irkutsk-2 airport,” an official in the emergency service of the Siberian Federal District told the Interfax news agency, Xinhua reported.

Remains of five people killed in the incident have been recovered from under the debris, according to a source with the emergency situations ministry’s Irkutsk branch.

Six of the nine people aboard the cargo plane were crew members and the other three were officers accompanying the cargo.

The Russian investigative committee confirmed that the incident took place in the territory of an army unit near the railway station of Batareinaya.

According to the defence ministry, the crash of the cargo plane damaged the upper parts of two warehouses, but caused no new casualties on the ground.

The investigative committee’s spokesperson Vladimir Markin said a criminal case has been opened over the crash on charges of violating air traffic rules.

The An-12 aircraft, registered as an experimental aviation plane, belonged to an aircraft factory. It was said to be transporting spare parts to the Irkutsk aircraft repair base before the air crash took place.

Designed in the Soviet era, the An-12 plane is a four-engine civil and military transportation aircraft.