Passenger plane carrying 49 people crashes in remote Russia
A passenger plane that carrying 49 people has crashed in Russia's far east.
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Rescue services found the wreckage of the plane after the aircraft disappeared off radars on Thursday morning.
Air traffic control lost contact with the An-24 aircraft in the Amur region as it approached its destination Tynda.
Emergency officials stated that the Angara Airlines plane had departed from Blagoveshchensk, near the Chinese border, before it vanished from radar.
The regional governor, Vasily Orlov, said data showed 43 passengers on board - including five children, and six crew members.
"All necessary forces and means have been deployed to search for the plane,” he wrote on Telegram.
An unnamed emergency official told the state-run TASS news agency that all on board are believed to have died.
"According to preliminary information, all on board were killed," the official said.
"So far, the rescue helicopter has been unable to land at the crash site — it’s a remote, mountainous area on a slope. A fire is currently burning at the scene."
Russia's emergencies ministry has said a Russian civil aviation helicopter had spotted a burning fuselage from the plane.
Officials have said that the plane did not issue a distress signal or report any technical issues before it disappeared from radar.
Transportation investigators have announced that they are launching a criminal case for possible violations of safety rules.