Russia seeks to solve ‘ghost plane’ mystery
RUSSIA: Russian investigators were Monday seeking to determine
the cause of a plane crash last June that killed all 13 on board, after
the victims’ remains were finally discovered following almost a year of
fruitless searching.
Two hunters at the weekend stumbled upon the the An-2 plane in a
marsh eight kilometres (five miles) outside the town of Serov in the
Sverdlovsk region in the Ural Mountains in central Russia.
Investigators confirmed the wreckage belonged to the An-2 plane that
disappeared in June 2012 after taking off on an unsanctioned flight,
leaving Russian media to dub it the “ghost plane”.
Months of intensive searches for the plane in the forests of
Sverdlovsk and neighbouring regions yielded no results, and in the end
the hunters accidentally came across the aircraft just outside Serov,
the town from which it had taken off.
Thirteen corpses have been found inside the wreckage and DNA testing
was now under way to formally identify them, Urals prosecutors said in a
statement.
Russian media quoted local police as saying that the corpses were
those of the pilot and 12 passengers, some of whom were high-ranking
traffic police officials in the Serov region.
Investigators said three possible causes were being examined
including “the technical condition of the plane, a mistake by the pilot
and the weather conditions.”
AFP |