|
The
region's governor said two helicopters had been dispatched to
search for the plane, which was flying from the town of Kedrovy
in the region to the city of Tomsk.
The aircraft -- operated by SiLA, a small airline operating
regional flights in Siberia on turboprop aircraft -- was thought
to have been carrying 17 people, including three crew members,
governor Sergei Zhvachkin said.
The incident comes less than two weeks after a similar aircraft,
an Antonov An-26, crashed into a cliff in poor visibility
conditions on the remote Kamchatka peninsula in Russia's far
east, killing all 28 people on board.
An Antonov-28, the same type of plane that has gone missing over
Tomsk, crashed in a Kamchatka forest in 2012, killing 10 people.
Investigators said both pilots were drunk at the time of the
crash.
Russian aviation safety standards have improved in recent years
but accidents, especially involving ageing planes in far-flung
regions, are not uncommon.
(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber and Maxim Rodionov;
Editing by Andrew Osborn, Tom Balmforth and Raissa Kasolowsky)
[© 2021 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
