Da The Moscow Times del 23/08/2006
Originale su http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/08/23/001.html

No Survivors in Jet Crash in Ukraine

di Valeria Korchagina

A Pulkovo Airlines Tu-154M jet carrying at least 169 passengers and crew members from the Black Sea resort of Anapa to St. Petersburg crashed Tuesday afternoon near the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, killing everyone on board.

Several dozen of those on board were children who were likely returning with their families from seaside vacations.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but Russian and Ukrainian officials suggested a storm or turbulence was responsible for the tragedy.

"The catastrophe, according to preliminary data, was caused by lightning. The plane was caught in a storm," Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova said, Interfax reported. "Preliminary information suggests that all on board died."

Nikolai Kulbida, head of the Ukraine's state weather service, told Interfax: "We don't know what the real cause of the catastrophe was, but the weather conditions were difficult. There were heavy thunder storms, heavy rains and hail, as well as strong gusts of wind."

Kulbida said Russian meteorologists should have warned the crew about a patch of bad weather above Ukraine. "No matter what the height of the flight the plane was, it was bound to enter a danger area," he said.

It was unclear whether the pilots on board were aware of the severity of the weather and whether they were alerted to it.

According to Pulkovo Airlines, 159 passengers were on board; 39 were children, and of those, six were under 2 years old. Anapa airport officials said 45 on board were children. The aircraft also had a 10-member crew. Late August is a time when many families return from vacation before the beginning of the new school year, Sept. 1.

Among the passengers were Dutch citizens, said Leonid Belyayev, acting head of the St. Petersburg branch of the Emergency Situations Ministry. Other nationalities were not specified.

The first sign that something had gone wrong on board Flight 612 came at 3:37 p.m., an estimated 32 minutes after takeoff, when the pilot issued an SOS signal. Two minutes later, the airplane disappeared from radar screens, Andrianova said.

The aircraft was cruising at an altitude of about 10,000 meters when the SOS signal was issued, Interfax reported, citing Ukrainian Emergency Situations Ministry officials. The jet issued a second SOS signal from an altitude of 3,000 meters, NTV television later reported. There have been unconfirmed reports suggesting there was a fire on board and that the crew had attempted to perform an emergency landing.

The fiery remains of the plane were found soon after, some 45 kilometers north of Donetsk. Thirty bodies were discovered almost immediately. As of late Tuesday, the on-board recording devices, known as black boxes, had not been recovered.

The plane appeared to be intact while it was descending, Andrianova said, citing witnesses' accounts, Interfax reported. The site of the wreckage was in a relatively remote patch of countryside between the villages of Sukhaya Balka and Novgorodka; no one on the ground was reported injured.

Rossia / APFlight 612 taking off from Anapa about a half hour before the crash Tuesday.Ukrainian Prosecutor General Alexander Medvedko traveled to the crash site Tuesday evening. Russian investigators were also on their way to the scene from Rostov-on-Don.

At St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Airport, where the jet was due to land at 5:45 p.m., a team of doctors and psychologists was quickly assembled to help relatives coping with the tragedy. Many of the relatives only learned of the crash upon arriving at the airport, Interfax reported.

President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday ordered a special state commission to be created to investigate the accident. Transportation Minister Igor Levitin left Moscow for Ukraine on Tuesday afternoon, shortly after the crash. He is to lead the investigation.

The SOGAZ insurance company said Tuesday that all Pulkovo planes and flights had been insured. The precise amount of the insurance money to be paid out would be determined once the investigation of the crash was completed.

St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko said the city would also offer financial help to the crash victims' families and was ready to assist with funeral arrangements.

The crash is the third major airplane accident this year.

On July 9, an S7 Airbus A310 slid off a rain-soaked runway, crashed into a concrete barrier and burst into flames at the Irkutsk airport, killing 127 of the 204 people on board.

On May 3, an Armavia Airbus A320, carrying 113 passengers and crew from Yerevan to the Black Sea resort of Sochi, plunged into the Black Sea, killing all on board.

Pulkovo Airlines is Russia's third-largest airline in terms of passenger traffic. In the first half of 2006, the airline transported more than 1.2 million people, Interfax reported. Besides Tu-154s, it also operates Tu-134, Il-86 and Boeing 737 aircraft.

The airline is considered one of Russia's safest. It operates flights to 46 cities in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, and 84 flights to other international destinations.

The only serious accident involving a Pulkovo Airlines aircraft occurred in July 2002, when an Il-86 carrying only the crew crashed immediately after takeoff at Sheremetyevo Airport. Fourteen people died in the crash.

Statistically, the Tu-154 is among the safest in the world, although they tend to be older than other commercial aircraft.

The Tu-154M that crashed in Ukraine on Tuesday was made in 1992 and had logged a total of 24,215 hours in the sky. The plane's lifespan is designed to be 30,000 hours, Interfax reported.

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