A Russian passenger plane carrying 171 people, including six children, crashed on Tuesday while on a flight to St Petersburg from the Black Sea resort of Anapa just minutes after it hit adverse weather and the pilot reported a fire on board.
"Everyone is dead according to preliminary information," Interfax news agency quoted Russian emergency situations ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova as saying.
The ill-fated Tupolev Tu-154 airliner belonging to St Petersburg-based Pulkovo Airlines was carrying 160 passengers, including six children and 11 crew, Itar-Tass news agency reported quoting the ministry.
The plane was at an altitude of 10000 metres when it sent a distress signal and crashed shortly afterwards some 45 km north of the Ukrainian city of Donetsk.
The crew sent the distress signal at 1707 IST and the plane disappeared from radar screens two minutes later, Andrianova told Itar-Tass.
Preliminary investigations found that the crash was linked to stormy weather and severe turbulence, aviation officials told news agencies.
Before disappearing from the radar screens, the pilot of the Tupolev reportedly told the ground controllers about a fire on board and of his intention to make an emergency landing, Interfax reported quoting disaster management authorities in Ukraine.
They said the landing gear of the plane did not come out and the plane's belly hit the ground.
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