Moscow, Sep 7: At least 44 people, including an entire ice hockey team, were killed when a jet carrying them for a match crashed and burst into flames immediately after taking off from an airport in western Russia.
The Russian aircraft, a Yakovlev Yak-42, crashed at 4.00 pm (17.30 IST) after failing to gain altitude immediately after leaving an airport near Yaroslavl city, about 300-km north of Moscow.
Only one of the eight-member crew survived with serious burns, according to Channel 1 TV.
The rescuers have so far recovered 13 bodies from the fuselage, which fell into nearby Volga River.
The Yak-42 plane on the chartered flight was carrying the local ice hockey team Locomotive to Minsk, the Belarusian capital, for the start of the new Kontinental Hockey League.
President Dmitry Medvedev has expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, Kremlin spokesperson Natalia Timakova said, adding Medvedev would visit the crash site.
In June, another Russian passenger jet crashed in Petrozavodsk city leaving 47 dead. PTI
