A Tu-142-M3 military plane with 11 people on board crashed in the Pacific Ocean during a training flight late Friday, the Defense Ministry said.
It said in a statement that a search was under way for the crew of the anti-submarine aircraft. But RIA-Novosti quoted a military source as saying there was little chance of finding survivors.
The four-engine turboprop went down at 9:19 local time about 20 kilometers off the Pacific coast while flying over the Tatar Strait separating the Russian mainland from the island of Sakhalin, RIA-Novosti reported.
A senior Air Force official told RIA-Novosti that the crew did not make radio contact before the crash and there was no sign that they had tried to deploy emergency equipment to escape the aircraft.
“There is a life raft on board the plane that is fitted with a special device that gives out a signal in the event of an accident,” the source said. “At this moment, this search-and-rescue signal has not been detected.”
Vesti-24 state television showed pictures of debris including broken seats close to the crash site. Other parts of the plane were found Saturday morning at a depth of about 44 meters by a search team consisting of several ships and planes, RIA-Novosti reported.
The Pacific Fleet grounded its Tu-142 planes pending the outcome of the crash investigation.
The crash occurred about a week after an Il-76 military cargo plane crashed in the Sakha republic, killing all 11 people on board. The military had temporarily grounded all Il-76s after one lost an engine during takeoff last month.
(MT, Reuters)
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