A RusAir flight bound for the Petrozavodsk airport with 52 people aboard crashed Monday night outside Besovets. Authorities say 44 people died, including 36 Russians, four people with United States and Russian citizenship, two Ukrainians, one Swede and one Dutchman. The eight survivors include seven passengers and one member of the flight crew. All eight suffered injuries with five of them reportedly in critical condition.
The cause of the crash remains unknown. Authorities say the aircraft, a Tupolev-134, had flown nearly 600 miles from Moscow when it crashed on a highway near the Petrozavodsk airport around 11:40 p.m. The plane skidded into a forest, broke into several pieces and caught fire.
There have been mixed reports on what may have caused the crash. Several Russian news agencies initially reported the plane clipped an electrical power line while trying to land in heavy fog. At least one news agency later reported failure of runway lights caused the pilot to miss the runway and crash into the road.
President Dmitry Medvedev sent Transport Minister Igor Levitin to the scene to investigate. The flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder has been recovered from the wreckage and will be analyzed to help determine what led to the crash.
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