In Russia’s Far East, a plane carrying at least 30 people went missing.
An Antonov An-26 turboprop aircraft traveling over the isolated Kamchatka peninsula in Russia’s Far East has lost communication with air traffic controllers. The search for the plane is begun. There were a total of 28 persons on board.
According to the press department of the Russian Emergencies Ministry’s Main Directorate for the Kamchatka Territory, local authorities claimed they were currently “searching for details” concerning the aircraft’s whereabouts on Tuesday morning, Moscow time. There are 22 passengers, including at least one kid, and six crew members reported to be missing.
According to the Interfax and RIA Novosti news agencies, the plane was traveling from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to Palana on the Kamchatka Peninsula when it failed to make a scheduled communication.
Russian authorities are looking into whether the plane’s disappearance was caused by safety code violations or adverse weather. Heavy clouds and fog were recorded in the area, according to the Federal Air Transport Agency, according to the Moscow newspaper RBK.
Near Palana, a town on the peninsula’s west coast, where the An-26 is thought to have gone missing, two helicopters and an aircraft are involved in search operations.
Kamchatka Aviation Enterprise, a small local carrier that serves routes to remote villages and cities with a few of Soviet and Czechoslovak planes from the Communist era, undertook the flight.
The An-26 is a twin-engined turboprop designed in the 1960s by the Soviet Union. It was first put into service in 1970, and production ended in 1986. Hundreds are still in use, mostly by military personnel.
