Several dead in Russia plane crash

MOSCOW: Several people were killed late Monday when a Russian plane carrying 43 passengers and five crew crashed on a highway near Petrozavodsk airport in Karelia, northwest Russia, Russian news agencies reported.

"There are dead and injured," local emergency situations ministry spokeswoman Oksana Semenova told RIA Novosti.

The aircraft, a TU-134 belonging to RussAir, tried to land on a motorway two kilometres (a little over a mile) from Petrozavodsk airport, a ministry official told the news agency. But it crashed and caught fire, the official added. The plane was badly damaged in the blaze.

Interfax agency quoted local legal official Vladimir Markin as saying a dozen injured people had been hospitalised. The aircraft was on a flight from Moscow to Petrozavodsk, the capital of the Republic of Karelia. (AFP)