Russia plane crash: Fuselage found in Black Sea

Russian divers in the Black Sea have found the fuselage of a military plane which crashed on Sunday with 92 people on board, emergency officials say.

A huge search operation is continuing, involving some 3,500 people on ships, jets, helicopters and submersibles.
The Tu-154 plane - carrying soldiers, members of a famed army music ensemble and reporters - was heading for Syria.
All those on board are feared dead after Sunday's crash. Monday has been declared a national day of mourning.

First bodies found

Emergency officials said initial information suggested the fuselage was located 27m (89ft) below the surface and 1.7km (one mile) from the shore in the direction of the runway.

"Divers investigated an object found by sonar and are convinced that it is the body of the crashed plane," Interfax news agency quoted a source as saying.

So far only 11 bodies and 154 body parts have been found, but officials believe many more may be trapped inside the remains of the aircraft.
Search teams - including 139 divers - worked through the night in three shifts, and the operation "did not stop for a minute", Defence Ministry spokesman Maj Gen Igor Konashenkov said at a briefing on Monday.

The 10.5 sq km (four square miles) search area just off the coast had been extended, he added.

Ten of the bodies and "86 fragments" of bodies have now arrived in Moscow for identification, Maj Gen Konashenkov said later.

On Monday, Russian Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov said that terrorism was not "among the main versions" of the possible causes of the crash.

He reiterated that investigators were looking into whether a pilot error or technical fault may have brought down the aircraft.

The minister earlier stressed that it was too early to speculate on possible crash causes.

Russian media quoted Aerospace Forces Commander Viktor Bondarev as saying that the plane's black boxes had been located and they were not likely to have been damaged.

The plane disappeared from radar two minutes after taking off from Sochi's Adler airport at 05:25 (02:25 GMT), heading for Latakia in Syria, the defence ministry said.

The flight had originated in Moscow and landed in Sochi for refuelling.
It was carrying 64 members of the famed Alexandrov military music ensemble, who were to perform for Russian troops in Syria.

Source: BBC News