A Russian plane carrying 71 people on board has crashed in the Moscow region with everyone on board feared dead. The Saratov Airlines plane reportedly disappeared from radar screens minutes after taking off from Domodedovo airport, reported London’s Independent website.
The plane was on its way to the Russian city of Orsk, in the Urals, near Russia’s border with Kazakhstan and had 65 passengers and six crew members aboard. A report by BBC said that the plane crashed near the village of Argunovo, about 80km (50 miles) south-east of Moscow soon after it took off from the Russian capital.
Flight-tracking site Flightradar24 tweets that the aircraft was descending at 1,000m (3,300ft) per minute (60km/h, 38mph) five minutes after taking off.
The airline was banned in 2015 from operating international flights when surprise inspectors found someone other than the flight crew was in the cockpit. The airline appealed against the ban and changed its policy before resuming international charter flights in 2016.
