[UPDATED] Wreckage found after plane goes missing in Russia’s Far East: aviation agency

MOSCOW – Search teams have found wreckage of the An-26 passenger plane with 28 people aboard that disappeared earlier today in Russia’s Far Eastern Kamchatka peninsula, the country’s aviation agency told AFP.

“Rescuers found the wreckage of the aircraft. Given the geographic features of the landscape, rescue operations are difficult,” the aviation agency said in an emailed statement, adding that the debris was found along the region’s Pacific coast.

The An-26 was flying from Kamchatka’s main city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to the coastal town of Palana when it disappeared at 0240 GMT, Valentina Glazova, a spokesman for the local transport prosecutor’s office, told AFP.

Officials said that communication with the plane had been lost 9km from Palana’s airport and 10 minutes before its scheduled landing time.

Helicopters, a maritime patrol aircraft and several ships were deployed in a search with a focus on the Okhotsk Sea.

The aviation agency statement said that the wreckage had been found at 0906 GMT.

It added that the debris was located 4km-5km from the airport’s runway “on the side of the coastline”, though it did not specify whether it was found in the sea. 

Palana’s airport is located 3.3km from the coastline. – AFP, July 6, 2021