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Photos: All 50 on board killed as plane crashes in Russia

A passenger plane crashed at an airport in the Russian city of Kazan on Sunday, killing all 50 people on board, BBC reported.

The Boeing 737 had taken off from Moscow and was trying to land but exploded on impact at about 19:20 local time, officials said, the report added.

The Russian emergencies ministry said there were 44 passengers and six crew members on the Tatarstan Airlines flight.

Investigators are now looking at whether a technical failure or crew error may have caused the crash, the report stated.

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Photos: All 50 on board killed as plane crashes in Russia

Investigative committee official Vladimir Markin told Rossiya 24 TV that experts were checking whether poor quality fuel and weather conditions could have been contributing factors.

It was raining in Kazan when the aircraft crashed.

Among the dead was Irek Minnikhanov, a son of the president of the Russian Republic of Tatarstan, according to the official passenger list.

Aleksander Antonov, who headed Tatarstan's branch of the Federal Security Service, was also among the passengers, BBC reported.

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Photos: All 50 on board killed as plane crashes in Russia

The victims also included two children. Russian President Vladimir Putin "expressed his condolences to the relatives of the victims in this horrible disaster", his spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by the news agency Interfax as saying.

A government commission has been set up to investigate the cause, he said, BBC reported.

Reports said the pilot, 47-year-old Rustem Salikhov, had already tried to land several times before crashing.

 

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