By RIA Novosti,
Moscow : A passenger plane bound for the western Russian city of Perm in the Urals crashed minutes before it was to touch down early Sunday killing all 88 people on board, including seven children and 21 foreign nationals.
The Boeing-737-500 owned by Russian flagship carrier Aeroflot crashed in an unpopulated area at 3.15 a.m. (2315 GMT) with 83 passengers and a five-man crew on board, investigator Vladimir Markin.
Aeroflot said the passengers on Flight 821 included seven children, and “foreign citizens including nine from Azerbaijan, five from Ukraine, and one each from France, Switzerland, Latvia, the United States, Germany, Turkey and Italy.”
Markin said the plane crashed into a ravine, and that part of the trans-Siberian rail line between Perm and Yekaterinburg was damaged.
News channel Vesti-24 has shown footage of the plane wreckage strewn over a large wooded area.
An eyewitness described to the channel how the plane had caught fire midair and had hurtled downwards “like a falling comet.”
Aeroflot in a statement said it would pay compensation up to two million roubles ($80,000) in compensation for each victim. The airline said the plane was on lease to the Dublin-based company Pinewatch Limited.
The Perm Territory will hold a day of mourning for the crash victims Monday, a spokesman for the regional administration told RIA Novosti.
The disaster is the worst since Pulkovo Flight 612, which crashed in eastern Ukraine Aug 22, 2006 en route from the Black Sea to St. Petersburg, killing all 160 passengers and 10 members of the crew.