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Boeing-737 crash in Kazan

Rescuers finish the main works at the Boeing crash site in Kazan - summary

The committee noted that the plane had hit the ground at a speed exceeding 450 kilometers per hour

MOSCOW, November 19, 21:23 /ITAR-TASS/. Rescuers have finished removing the wreckage of the Boeing-737 aircraft that crashed in Kazan, Tatarstan, on Sunday.

General Eduard Chizhikov, the acting chief military expert of the Russian Emergencies Ministry, told journalists on Tuesday that the territory was clean from the plane fragments which were blown across an area of 23,000 square metres when the plane touched the ground.

“From now on, EMERCOM employees will be called in only in the interests of investigative bodies and the Inter-State Aviation Committee,” Chizhikov went on to say.

The Inter-State Aviation Committee has published the first preliminary data from the parametric flight recorder aboard the crashed Boeing-737 aircraft. A source at the Inter-State Aviations Committee told Itar-Tass that the crew had failed to make a standard approach to landing at Kazan airport.

The committee also noted that the plane had hit the ground at a speed exceeding 450 kilometers per hour. The time from the start of a second circle to the crash was about 45 seconds.

In the meantime, a search is under way for the recording capsule of the cockpit recorder, which was ‘found empty’ earlier on Tuesday.

Experts are said to believe that the capsule containing cockpit recordings could have been thrown from the plane when it hit the ground.

The aircraft is said to have dived nose-down to the ground when the pilots attempted to circle for a second time. It fell between the two runways neither of which was damaged. The plane exploded into pieces as it touched the ground.

Forensic examiners continue taking DNA tests from relatives to identify what remained of the bodies of the Boeing-737 passengers. Fifteen passengers have been identified, the Russian Health Ministry reports.

Nail Nigmatullin, the chief of the forensic examination department of Tatarstan’s Health Ministry, said that DNA tests and identification of all the 50 passengers could last for several weeks.

The ill-fated Boeing-737 flight ended in the deaths of all 44 passengers and the crew of six on November 17.

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