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Fact-finding mission completed at An-12 crash site near Siberia’s Irkutsk

The airplane crashed on December 26 near the Batareinaya station of the East Siberian railway

IRKUTSK, December 29, 11:05 /ITAR-TASS/. The group of detectives have completed their fact-finding mission at the crash site of an airplane Antonov An-12 near the Russian Siberian city of Irkutsk, taking the fuel samples from the fuel tanks of the crashed airplane.

“A chemical expertise was announced to estimate the fuel quality,” the press service of the Eastern Siberian transport investigation department of the Russian Investigative Committee reported.

The airplane An-12, which was trafficking the aircraft parts from Novosibirsk to Irkutsk, crashed in the evening on December 26, in the landing approach near the Batareinaya station of the East Siberian railway.

The detectives have found that the airplane has disappeared from the radars at a distance of one kilometre from the landing strip. In the crash the airplane was partially destroyed catching the warehouse facilities by the wings. Six crewmen and three employees carrying the freight were onboard the airplane. All of them died in the air crash and were identified later.

“The undamaged part of the airplane and the airplane pieces found at the crash site were passed to the committee of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade for a detailed expertise,” the Investigative Committee said.

Personal belongings of the air crash victims found at the crash site will be passed to their relatives soon.

“The detectives are searching for and questioning the eyewitnesses among servicemen of a military unit, on the territory of which the airplane had crashed, as well as local residents,” the committee said. The bad weather, the pilot error and the malfunction of the airplane were previously named as the preliminary theories of the air crash.

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