Putin regularly briefed on An-148 crash developments — Kremlin

Russian Politics & Diplomacy February 12, 2018, 13:54

According to Peskov, the president receives information from the government commission on the crash probe regularly

MOSCOW, February 12. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been constantly receiving information about the work at the crash site of the An-148 passenger plane, but it is too early to talk about the causes of the accident yet, Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"The head of state is constantly briefed [on the work at the crash site and the probe into the causes]," he said. "If you mean some final report by the [government] commission [on the causes of the accident], of course, at the moment it is impossible to raise the issue of some report, because less than 24 hours have passed [since the tragedy]."

According to Peskov, the president regularly receives information from the government commission set up in connection with the accident.

The Kremlin spokesman stressed that "one can hardly expect" the final report on the causes of the plane crash to be presented to Putin on Monday. "Apparently, not enough time has passed to establish the reasons so far. That is why these expectations are, of course, grossly exaggerated," he stressed.

On February 11, the Antonov An-148 passenger plane operated by Saratov Airlines (Moscow to Orsk route, in the Orenburg Region) that departed from Domodedovo airport vanished from radar a few minutes after takeoff. Fragments of the plane were found near the village of Stepanovskoye in the Moscow Region’s Ramensky district. There were 65 passengers and six crew members onboard the passenger jet. None of them survived. To date, rescue workers have found more than 300 plane’s fragments at the crash site, the emergency response headquarters said.

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