Plane with 49 people on board crashes in Russia (VIDEO)

A passenger aircraft has crashed in Russia’s Far East, killing all 49 people on board, emergency services confirmed on Thursday. 

The Angara Airlines Antonov An-24 twin-engine turboprop went down around 1pm local time near the city of Tynda in the Amur Region. The plane was flying a multi-leg domestic route from regional hub Khabarovsk to Blagoveshchensk, and then onward to Tynda.

According to preliminary data, the aircraft was carrying 43 passengers, including five children, along with six crew members. The wreckage was found on a wooded mountainside approximately 15km from Tynda’s airport, with parts of the fuselage still burning when rescuers arrived.

Russia’s Investigative Committee has confirmed that there were no survivors in the incident. The agency is looking into suspected violations of air transport safety rules resulting in death, which is a criminal offense.

The An-24 reportedly vanished from radar during its second approach to land, having aborted the initial attempt for reasons that remain unclear. Weather conditions at the time have not yet been publicly confirmed.

Angara Airlines, based in Irkutsk, primarily operates Soviet-era turboprop aircraft on regional routes across Siberia and the Russian Far East. The An-24 model involved in Thursday’s crash first entered service in the 1960s and remains in use on some of the country’s most isolated air routes.

There was no immediate statement from the airline. A team of investigators and aviation safety experts has been dispatched to the crash site.

Footage reportedly from the scene shared on Telegram showed smoke rising from snow-dusted forested slopes, with emergency crews working amid wreckage strewn across the hillside.

Amur Region, home to roughly 750,000 people, borders China and spans a vast expanse of forests, mountains, and rivers. Tynda itself is a logistical outpost of fewer than 30,000 residents, built in the 1970s to support the Baikal-Amur Mainline, Russia’s second major east-west rail corridor.

The city lies over 2,000km from Khabarovsk, a major regional capital and the starting point of the doomed flight.