MOSCOW, April 27. /TASS/. Russia’s Investigative Committee has denied speculations the Defense Ministry’s Tupolev-154 passenger jet that crashed near Sochi late last year was overloaded.

"Media speculations the Tupolev-154 plane’s crash in the Black Sea was due to overload disagrees with the established circumstances and other evidence gathered in the process of investigating the criminal case," IC spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said.

She declared that "a final conclusion will be made by Russia’s military investigation authorities only after the full set of examinations and tests has been carried out."

"The media speculations about the likely causes of the plane’s crash do not rely on facts and are nothing but private opinions," Petrenko said.

A Russian Defense Ministry Tu-154 bound for Syria crashed in the early morning hours of December 25 shortly after taking off from Sochi. There were 92 people on board the aircraft, including eight crew members and 84 passengers. Among them were journalists, servicemen and musicians from the world-renowned Alexandrov ensemble, the official choir of the Russian armed forces, who set off to celebrate New Year’s Eve with Russia’s Aerospace Forces at the Hmeymim air base in Syria.

The Executive Director of the Russian for Fair Aid charity fund Elizaveta Glinka, known to the Russian public as Dr. Liza, was also on board that flight.