A Russian military plane crashed into the Black Sea on Sunday, killing everyone who was on board, including 64 members of the Alexandrov Ensemble, better known as the Red Army Choir. The singers, dancers, and orchestra members were on their way to Syria for a planned New Year’s performance to entertain Russian troops at a military base. Nine Russian journalists were also on board the plane that crashed merely minutes after taking off from Sochi, in southern Russia, where it had stopped to refuel from Moscow.
“The area of the crash site has been established. No survivors have been spotted,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said. A source tells the Interfax news agency that the plane did not send out a distress signal and a recording of the final conversation between the pilots and air traffic controllers reveals nothing unusual. Although the cause of the crash is still under investigation, officials say terrorism appears unlikely at this stage. Viktor Ozerov, head of the Russian parliament’s defense committee, told state media he “totally excludes” terrorism as a possible cause. Weather also seems to be out as a possible explanation and Russia’s RIA news agency cites an unnamed source saying that preliminary data suggests a technical malfunction was to blame.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences to the victims and called on Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev to set up a state commission to investigate the cause of the crash. “First of all, I would like to express my sincere condolences to the families of our citizens, who died today, as a result of an aviation catastrophe over the Black Sea this morning,” Putin said. The president declared Monday a national day of mourning.
The Soviet-era Tupolev plane that was built in 1983 was carrying 84 passengers and eight crew members when it crashed. There have been around four dozen fatal accidents involving the Tu-154 aircraft, which was designed in the 1960s. The most widely remembered crash took place in 2010, when a Tu-154M belonging to the Polish Air Force crashed near Smolensk, Russia, killing all 96 people who were on board, including Polish President Lech Kaczynski.
