Russian rescue services have found the wreckage of a plane that disappeared about 16km (10 miles) from its destination in the far-eastern Amur region.
The Angara airlines An-24 plane, carrying 42 passengers and six crew, had left Blagoveshchensk close to the Chinese border and vanished from radar screens as it approached Tynda airport, officials said.
Amur’s regional governor Vasily Orlov said “all necessary resources” had been deployed to find the plane. Five children were among those on board, he added.
Shortly afterwards Russia’s emergencies ministry said a Russian civil aviation helicopter had spotted burning fuselage from the plane. No-one is thought to have survived, reports say.
Amur’s civil defence centre said the plane had been found on a hillside about 16km (10 miles) from Tynda, Tass news agency reported.
Footage from the scene showed wreckage from the plane burning in dense woodland and rescuers said it would take them about an hour to reach the site.
Preliminary inquiries are looking at either pilot error in poor weather conditions or technical malfunction, according to emergency officials.
The An-24 plane had been on the final leg of a route from Khabarovsk in the far south-east of Russia.
The Angara airlines Antonov 24 plane is reported to be almost 50 years old, and has had trouble in the past.
Although officials said the plane had passed a recent technical inspection, civil aviation authority told news agencies it had been involved in four incidents since 2018.
Other An-24 planes have been involved in fatal crashes too.
An An-24RV veered off the runway as it landed at Nizhneangarsk Airport in July 2019. Two members of the flight crew were killed.
In 2011, another Angara An-24 crashed into the Ob river in Siberia, killing seven passengers.
