<p>The RussAir Tu-134 tried to land just before midnight local time yesterday on a motorway two km from Petrozavodsk airport in the Karelia region of northern Russia.<br /><br />But the plane, which was carrying out a flight from Moscow's Domodedovo airport, crashed and caught fire before it approached the airport.<br /><br />"On July 20, a Tu-134 plane sustained a hard landing. Contact was lost with the pilot at 23:40. The survivors have been sent to Petrozavodsk hospital," the local branch of the emergencies ministry said in a statement on its website.<br /><br />The spokesman of The Russian investigative committee Vladimir Markin told Russian news agencies that a criminal probe was being opened into neglect of air transport rules.<br /><br />"According to the latest information, 52 people were on board the plane. Forty four were killed and eight were injured," an emergencies ministry official told the RIA Novosti news agency.<br /><br />The emergencies ministry in Moscow published a list of the passengers on the flight while the local branch of the ministry in Karelia gave a list of the eight people who had surivived.<br /><br />The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, although the 24-hour news channel Vesti quoted aviation sources as saying that bad weather in the area at the time could have been a factor. Human error was also not ruled out.<br /><br />The eight survivors were hospitalised, some in serious condition, emergency situations ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova told RIA Novosti.</p>
<p>The RussAir Tu-134 tried to land just before midnight local time yesterday on a motorway two km from Petrozavodsk airport in the Karelia region of northern Russia.<br /><br />But the plane, which was carrying out a flight from Moscow's Domodedovo airport, crashed and caught fire before it approached the airport.<br /><br />"On July 20, a Tu-134 plane sustained a hard landing. Contact was lost with the pilot at 23:40. The survivors have been sent to Petrozavodsk hospital," the local branch of the emergencies ministry said in a statement on its website.<br /><br />The spokesman of The Russian investigative committee Vladimir Markin told Russian news agencies that a criminal probe was being opened into neglect of air transport rules.<br /><br />"According to the latest information, 52 people were on board the plane. Forty four were killed and eight were injured," an emergencies ministry official told the RIA Novosti news agency.<br /><br />The emergencies ministry in Moscow published a list of the passengers on the flight while the local branch of the ministry in Karelia gave a list of the eight people who had surivived.<br /><br />The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, although the 24-hour news channel Vesti quoted aviation sources as saying that bad weather in the area at the time could have been a factor. Human error was also not ruled out.<br /><br />The eight survivors were hospitalised, some in serious condition, emergency situations ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova told RIA Novosti.</p>