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No survivors in An-26 plane crash in Russia’s Kamchatka — ministry

There were 22 passengers and six crew members onboard

MOSCOW, July 7. /TASS/. No one has survived the An-26 plane crash in Russia’s Far Eastern region of Kamchatka, the Russian Transport Ministry said on Wednesday.

"On July 6, passenger plane An-26, en route from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to Palana, crashed some 10 minutes before landing at the airport of Palana. There were 22 passengers and six crew members onboard. There are no survivors," the ministry said citing Minister Vitaly Savelyev, who heads the government’s commission for investigating the crash.

On Wednesday, Savelyev inspected the crash site in the village of Palana in the Kamchatka Region.

Earlier, a source in the emergencies services told TASS that the bodies of 19 people were discovered at the crash site. The search effort was complicated due to the storm.

The An-26 plane belonging to the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Air Enterprise went missing on July 6. The plane’s debris was found 3.8 kilometers away from the airport of Palana, according to the Emergencies Ministry. One theory suggests that the crash happened because of piloting error due to poor visibility.