Russian plane crashes in storm; 170 killed

SUKHA BALKA, Ukraine – A Russian passenger jet crashed during a thunderstorm just minutes after sending a distress signal on Tuesday, killing all 170 people on board, including dozens of children.

Emergency officials said preliminary information led them to believe that weather caused the Pulkovo Airlines’ Tu-154 to plummet to the ground in what was the third passenger plane crash involving Russia’s aviation industry this year.

Ukrainian officials said a storm with high winds, driving rain and lightning was raging through the region at the time. Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova, citing information from her Ukrainian counterparts, said the plane was likely hit by lightning.

Mykhaylo Korsakov, spokesman for the Donetsk department of the ministry, said the pilot asked to make an emergency landing before disappearing from the radar screens about 2:30 p.m.

The Tu-154 was en route from the Russian Black Sea resort of Anapa – a holiday destination popular with families – to St. Petersburg when it ran into trouble. Two minutes after the crew sent a distress signal, it dropped off the radar, said Russian emergency official Yulia Stadnikova.

Residents of Sukha Balka, a village north of Donetsk and about 400 miles east of Kiev, found part of the plane’s tail section and still-burning pieces of debris in a swampy field. Television footage showed scorched, smoldering land covered in small pieces of wreckage. Thick white smoke hung over the debris.

Of the 170 people on board, 45 were children, Pulkovo Airlines deputy director Anatoly Samoshin told reporters at the St. Petersburg airport. The list of passengers, most of whom were from St. Petersburg, appeared to include many families.

Investigators were searching for the flight data recorders commonly called black boxes.