A jet carrying a top ice hockey team crashed after takeoff from the Russian city of Yaroslavl yesterday, killing at least 43 people including several foreign stars.
The 18-year-old Yak-42 was flying members of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team to a season-opening match in the Belarus capital Minsk when it went down near Yaroslavl airport, some 300 kilometres northeast of Moscow.
The emergency situations ministry said two other people aboard survived but were in grave condition.
The crash occurred near the site of an annual forum attended by President Dmitry Medvedev to discuss Russia’s upcoming election battle.
The plane began listing to the left only seconds into the afternoon flight and crashed about 500 metres away from the Tunoshna airport.
Initial reports said the jet may have hit a local radar antenna and the twisted wreckage of the aircraft lay buried in the Tunoshna River as divers searched for signs of life.
“We saw a plane and then heard a boom. There was a huge flame that quickly turned to smoke,” said 16-year-old witness Andrei Gorshkov.
Officials initially said that a steward was the only person among 45 passengers and crew members to survive the crash.
But a local hospital surgeon later told Chanel One television that Russian player Alexander Galimov was alive but in critical condition with burns to nearly 90 per cent of his body.
Among those killed were the coach, Canada’s Brad McCrimmon – a former assistant with the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings – the team’s goalie and former Swedish Olympic champion Stefan Liv as well as Slovak ex-NHL standout Pavol Demitra. Three Czech stars – Jan Marek, Josef Vasicek and Karel Rachunek – were also among the dead
Thirty-one-year-old centre Jan Marek and 32-year-old defenceman Karel Rachunek were world champions from 2010, while the 31-year-old centre Josef Vasicek had a world title from 2005.
The crash revived memories of an August 1979 disaster that claimed the lives of 17 football players from the Tashkent side Pakhtakor.
Russia has experienced another summer full of mishaps that have for the first time also marred the country’s once-proud space programme. Two accidents involving Tu-134 and An-24 jets this summer killed a total of 54 people and prompted Mr Medvedev to call for most of the aircraft to be retired by January 1.
But that move was followed by a series of smaller air accidents as well as a Volga River boat sinking that killed 122 people out on a summer pleasure cruise.