A Russian plane with about 50 people on board crashed in the country’s far east on Thursday (July 24). Earlier, there were reports that the Antonov An-24 passenger plane disappeared about 16 km from its destination in the Amur region.

The burning wreckage of the Angara airlines flight, carrying 42 passengers and six crew, was spotted on the ground by a helicopter. As per initial reports, all people on board the ill-fated plane are feared to have died.

What is the Russian aircraft involved in the crash? Is it safe?

We will take a look.

Russian plane crashes

The Antonov An-24 passenger plane had left the city of Blagoveshchensk on Thursday and was en route to Tynda, a remote town in the Amur region bordering China. It vanished from radar screens as it prepared to land.

“Fifteen kilometres from Tynda, the wreckage of an An-24 was found on a slope. The plane was destroyed,” the Russian emergencies ministry said, as per the Interfax news agency.

Footage from the scene showed the plane crash in a densely forested area, with smoke rising from the site.

According to Vasily Orlov, the regional governor, there were 43 passengers, including five children, and six crew members on board. “All necessary forces and means have been deployed to search for the plane,” he wrote.

The Russian government has formed a commission to deal with the
aftermath of the crash. An investigation into the cause of the crash has also been announced.

Pilot error during landing in poor weather conditions or technical malfunction are being considered as possible causes.

What we know about the Russian plane

The tail number of the Antonov plane showed it was built in 1976 in the Soviet era.

The aircraft was operated by the Soviet flag carrier Aeroflot before the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. It was currently being operated by a privately owned Siberian-based regional airline called Angara, as per a Reuters report.

Angara airline, based in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, operates in the airports in Siberia and Russia’s far east. It has 10 An-24s built between 1972 and 1976, according to the RussianPlanes website.

Designed for short- and medium-haul airlines, the propeller-driven An-24 took its first flight in October 1959. Its cruise speed is 420 km/hour and operational range of 990 km. The An-24 is the original aircraft of the Antonov family of twin turboprop civil and military planes, as per Skybrary.

Are Antonov planes safe?

The An-24s have earned the moniker of “flying tractors” as they are considered reliable workhorses by the Russian aviation industry. These planes are appropriate for harsh conditions in Siberia as they can operate in sub-zero temperatures and don’t have to land on runways, reported Reuters. 

However, Antonov aircraft have seen over 60
mishaps since 2000, as per 1001 Crash. Three crashes involving planes from the Antonov family were reported in 2021 – two in Russia and one in Sudan.

In 2022, an Antonov An-12 cargo plane with eight people on board crashed near the city of Kavala in northern Greece.

An An-24RV veered off the runway as it landed at Nizhneangarsk Airport in Russia in July 2019, killing two crew members.

In 2011, another Angara airlines An-24 crashed into the Ob river in Siberia, resulting in the death of seven passengers.

The Angara Antonov 24 plane that crashed on Thursday had recently passed a technical inspection, as per officials. However, civil aviation authority told news agencies that the plane had been involved in four incidents since 2018, reported BBC. 

According to airline executives, pilots and industry experts, the cost of maintaining the Antonovs has surged after Western sanctions on Russia over its war in Ukraine hit investment and access to parts.

Russia, whose fraction of a fleet of over 1,000 passenger planes is made up of Antonovs, was set to retire many of the planes in the coming years. But regional airlines continue to fly them as there are no alternatives yet.

With inputs from agencies