Weather sponsored by:
Russians seek clues to plane crash that killed all 145 aboard
Posted: Thursday, July 05, 2001
MOSCOW (AP) -- Investigators on Wednesday combed through smoking wreckage and examined flight data recorders for clues to what caused a passenger airliner to plunge into a Siberian meadow, killing all 145 people aboard.
The Tu-154 jet belonging to the Vladivostokavia airline crashed about 2 a.m. while trying to land at Irkutsk, a major Siberian city 2,600 miles east of Moscow.
It was at a height of 2,800 feet when it made a sudden 180-degree turn and plunged into a meadow surrounded by forest about 20 miles outside Irkutsk, Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu said at the crash site.