UKRAINE/ RUSSIA: Investigators recover black box flight recorders from crashed Russian airliner.

Record ID: 757403

  • Title: UKRAINE/ RUSSIA: Investigators recover black box flight recorders from crashed Russian airliner.
  • Date: 24th August 2006
  • Summary: WIDE OF VASILY NALYOTENKO, DEPUTY HEAD OF PULKOVO AIRLINES AT NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) VASILY NALYOTENKO, DEPUTY HEAD OF PULKOVO AIRLINES, SAYING: "According to our records, we had one Dutch national, two German nationals, one French citizen, and one Finnish citizen (on board)."
  • Embargoed: 8th September 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
  • Reuters ID: LVA2GTXWJYVSI2A32GGO47KW6V69
  • Story Text: Investigators have found the black boxes of a Russian airliner which crashed into a field in Ukraine on Tuesday (August 22) killing all 170 people on board. The plane had flown into a thunderstorm.
    Local residents used a mobile phone to film the moment the plane crashed near Sukha Bulka about 45 km (30 miles) north of Donetsk.
    It showed a giant ball of flame and a thick pall of smoke.
    A voice can be heard shouting in Russian: ""A plane has crashed! A plane has crashed!" .
    The aircraft, a TU-154, was operated by one of Russia's largest carriers, Pulkovo Airlines.
    More than 400 rescue workers from both Ukraine and Russia are at the crash site sifting through the debris.
    Corpses lay sprawled in a field alongside shattered chunks of fuselage, a burned-out engine and a large piece of the plane's tail.
    Distraught relatives have been arriving at Pulkovo Airport in St Petersburg. They are to be flown to the crash site.
    The doomed flight had been en route from a Black Sea holiday resort taking its passengers back home.
    Medical teams and psychologists are on hand at St Petersburg to help families cope with the distress.
    "We have emergency medical and teams of psychologists on standby, and we are still in discussions about how and when to fly all who have gathered here to the (crash) site. Of course emotions are running high, people are very upset and distressed. We are taking all measures to make sure they reach the site as soon as possible," Grigory Gurbonov, a spokesman for Russia's Emergencies ministry told reporters at Pulkovo airport.
    Officials said the plane had probably been hit by lightning and then hurtled into the ground as the crew tried to manoeuvre out of a violent storm. But investigators warned against drawing any premature conclusions about the accident.
    Ten crew and 39 children were among the dead in the crash, the second major loss of life involving a Russian airliner in two months. Most of the passengers were Russians but some Dutch nationals were also on board.
    Vasily Nalyotenko, deputy head of Pulkovo Airlines, said the crash dead included some foreign nationals.
    "According to our records, we had one Dutch national, two German nationals, one French citizen, and one Finnish citizen (on board)," he told a news conference at Pulkovo airport, the airline's home base in St.Petersburg.
    Ukraine declared Wednesday a national day of mourning. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday would be a day of mourning in his country.
    Last month, 122 people died when their Airbus skidded off the runway on landing in the Siberian city of Irkutsk. Russian aviation had a poor safety record in the 1990s but it has improved its reputation since then.
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