KAZAN, October 10./TASS/. The pilots of the Let L-410 Turbolet plane reported the failure of the left engine before it crashed in Tatarstan on Sunday, President of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov said at the site of the plane crash.
"According to data that I have obtained, the plane took off and at an altitude of 70 meters, the pilots reported that the left engine failed and asked for an emergency landing. As we see, the flight did not last long," Rustam Minnikhanov said, adding that the pilots were seeking to avoid the settlements ahead, swerving left, and attempting to land. "But, apparently the altitude did not make it possible," the president of Tatarstan said.
He said that the plane hit a Gazel car on the ground with its wing, and overturned.
A bird may have been the reason behind the failure of the left engine of the L-410 plane that crashed in Tatarstan early on Sunday, the head of Tatarstan’s Menzelinsk District, Aidar Salakhov, told journalists on Sunday. "For now, the preliminary version is that something may have got into the engine, either a bird or something else. The left engine failed," Salakhov said.
Earlier reports said that a criminal case was opened over ‘violation of rules of safety and the operation of an aircraft, causing the death of two or more people by negligence’.
The plane crash-landed in the Menzelinsk district of Tatarstan at about 09:10, Moscow time on Sunday. There were two pilots and 20 parachute jumpers aboard. Sixteen people died in the crash and six were injured.