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Russian Plane Collides With Cargo Plane, Killing 52 Children Among
71
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| Relatives of victims gathered at the airport in Ufa, Bashkortostan, to await further developments. |
MOSCOW,
July 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Fifty-two children and
teenagers from government families in the Urals republic of
Bashkortostan who were flying to Spain for vacation were among the 69
people aboard a jet that collided with a cargo plane
over southern Germany, officials said Tuesday, July 2.
Bashkirian Airlines deputy chairman Viner Sharkirov told Moscow Echo
radio that the Tupolev 154-M plane
was engaged on a charter flight when it hit a DHL Boeing 757 transport
aircraft above Lake Konstanz, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The
Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences to
the families of the victims, including members of the Bashkortostan
regional administration and ministries as well as local universities.
The
children were flying to Barcelona through a program funded by UNESCO,
officials said.
The
region's president, Murtaza Rakhimov, declared a period of mourning in
the republic lasting through Thursday.
The
airline's deputy chairman Shakirov said the children were flying to
Spain for a summer vacation and were using one of the most modern jets
in his company's fleet.
"The
jet was used for charter flights and was based in [Moscow's]
Domodedovo airport," Shakirov said.
"This
was one of the most modern machines in our fleet, it was made in 1995
and had all the resources of a modern aircraft," he added.
He
said the jet's pilot, Alexander Gross, had flight experience of more
than 12,000 hours, having flown on international routes since 1993.
Other
airline officials said that 45 of the children were 16 of age or
younger, although contradictory reports over the toll figures filtered
in for hours after the crash.
They
also dismissed suggestions by Russian media that the Tupolev plane
may have crashed into the Boeing because the pilot could not
understand English instructions from Swiss air control for the jet to
lower its altitude.
Shakirov
said that the airline, which had never before experienced a crash in
its post-Soviet existence, was working with an insurance company to
ensure a financial settlement with the government families involved.
Meanwhile,
relatives of the children and crew who died in the crash gathered at
the airport in Ufa, Bashkortostan, to await further developments.
Local
officials said it was to be decided shortly whether to fly the
families to Moscow, from where the flight took off late Monday, July
1, and possibly later to Germany, a local journalist reported.
German
police have said that 71 people died in the crash, 69 of them aboard
the Russian plane
and the two pilots aboard the cargo plane.
Meanwhile,
the Emergency services crews have recovered 15 bodies. Wreckage
and bodies were reportedly spread over a 30-kilometer (19-mile) area
in mainly agricultural land. Police sealed off much of the area while
recovery teams used dogs to locate the dead
Baden-Wuerttemberg
state Transport Minister Ulrich Mueller said that Swiss air traffic
controllers had been following the two aircraft and noticed that they
were flying at the same altitude. They repeatedly told the Tupolev to
change altitude, but the pilot failed to react and the captain of the
Boeing tried without success to avoid a collision.
"So
we have to suppose that the pilot made a mistake," Mueller said.
Witnesses
near Lake Konstanz, which borders Switzerland and Austria, reported
hearing a loud explosion and seeing flaming pieces of wreckage
crashing towards the ground.
"The
sky became bright all of a sudden. It looked as if the sky was on
fire," said Klaus Barinka,a 42-year-old ferry boat captain
working at Lake Konstanz.
According
to Skyguide, Swiss air traffic controllers of the planes were reducing
altitude to try and avoid a crash.
Skyguide
told a news conference in Zurich it had triggered a normal avoidance
procedure before the mid-air collision.
Meanwhile,
a spokesman for DHL said that there is no indication that anything was
wrong with the cargo jet.
Axel
Gietz, director of corporate affairs for DHL, said the DHL Boeing was
relatively new, well equipped -- it had an onboard collision avoidance
system -- and with experienced pilots, one British and one Canadian.
Somehow,
the cargo jet collided with a Bashkirian Airlines Tupolev en route
from Moscow to Barcelona over Lake Konstanz.
"What
I can say for sure," Gietz told BBC radio, "is there is no
indication whatsoever that there was anything wrong with our plane. "It
was a recent plane,
built in 1990.
"It
had a special piece of equipment called a traffic collision avoidance
system which basically indicates to pilots if anything is too close to
them so they can still react."
He
said the pilots were experienced, long-term DHL employees. He named
them as Paul Phillips, a Briton, and co-pilot Brant Campioni, a
Canadian.
"Neither
from a technical operational point of view as far as the plane
is concerned, nor from the pilots' point of view, is there any
indication of what could have caused this terrible accident,"
Gietz said.
However,
he ruled out any suggestion that the DHL pilots had not responded to
the orders of air traffic control.
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