Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 4, 1994 TAG: 9401040062
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MOSCOW LENGTH: Medium
Russian television said a farmer was killed on the ground, and the ITAR-Tass news agency said a milkmaid was burned on her hands and face. But officials said they were unaware of any casualties on the ground.
The crash was the second in eight days in the former Soviet Union, highlighting concerns about the safety of the state-run Aeroflot airline and scores of smaller, spinoff companies.
The Tu-154 jet that crashed Monday belonged to Baikal Air, one of many new regional carriers.
The plane had just taken off from Irkutsk, near the southern shores of Lake Baikal, on a flight to Moscow, 2,500 miles to the west, when one of its three engines failed.
"The captain radioed the control tower that his No. 2 engine was on fire and he was turning around," said Yekaterina Glebova of the State Committee for Emergency Situations, which deals with natural disasters and major accidents.
"Then he radioed again and said that the engine was completely out and they had lost control of the airplane. . . . Then it just disappeared from the radar screen," Glebova said.
After 12 minutes in the air, the plane crashed and exploded on a livestock farm near the village of Mamona, 7 miles outside Irkutsk, a city of 650,000 people.
Doctors, rescue workers and civil defense troops rushed to the crash site, but "there were no survivors," Glebova said.
ITAR-Tass later reported that the plane's hydraulic system had failed just before the engine caught fire, but it was not clear if the problems were linked.
by CNB