A Russian military transport plane carrying dozens of officers crashed while attempting to land in eastern Siberia early Friday, killing all 47 people aboard, officials said.


It was the third major aviation disaster in Siberia so far this year.


The four-engine Antonov 12 was approaching a military airport when it went down 5,000 meters short of the runway, said Colonel General Viktor Kot, the acting air-force commander. He spoke to Itar-Tass.


Military district commander Valery Tretyakov told Interfax that the plane spun around and crashed. Other officials said one or more engines had burst into flames.


The crash occurred at about 9:45 A.M. in Bada, 225 kilometers west of the city of Chita in eastern Siberia. Chita is 4,800 kilometers east of Moscow.


Officials said all 47 people aboard the plane, including six crew members, were killed. Kot told Itar-Tass that in addition to the crew, there were 39 officers and two of their wives. The officers were on their way to a staff meeting.


Authorities said the flight was on its way from Dzhida, 275 kilometers west of Bada.


Officials with Russia's weather service said there were unstable conditions in the area at the time, although it was not immediately known whether that played a role in Friday's crash.


The An-12 is a turboprop plane that went out of production in 1973.


This was the latest disaster in an already bad year for Russian aviation. There have been two major civilian crashes this year, including one in January near the Siberian city of Irkutsk that killed more than 120 people. Another passenger jet went down in Siberia in March, killing 75 people.


The deteriorating state of civilian and military aviation in Russia has prompted one international group to advise travelers to avoid flying to or within Russia.


The U.S. State Department last month told its diplomats not to fly on Russian airlines unless absolutely necessary.


Last year, air crashes claimed 348 lives in the former Soviet Union.