MOSCOW?? A passenger plane carrying a Russian ice hockey team to a season-opening match crashed after takeoff from a provincial airport on Wednesday, killing 43 people and leaving two survivors in grave condition.
The crash of the Yak-42 aircraft , whose victims included foreign stars playing for the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL)team Lokomotiv, plunged the sports world into grief and marred a showcase political forum featuring President Dmitry Medvedev.
It is likely to increase concerns about Russian aviation safety less than three months after a crash that killed 45.
The Russian-made plane was carrying 37 passengers and eight crew to Minsk in Belarus when it crashed a few miles from the airport at Tunoshna outside Yaroslavl, about 150 miles north of Moscow, the Emergencies Ministry said.
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"I heard a big bang and then a louder one 10 seconds later," said Andrei Gorshkov, a 16-year-old Tunoshna resident. "Flames shot high and a column of black smoke rose into the air."
He said he had seen the plane about 300 metres over the village, its nose pointing at a downward angle, then lost sight of it as it fell.
When he ran to the site, he said: "The wheel assembly was burning, half the plane was in the water, seats were floating and two people lay dead."
Two people survived and were hospitalised, ministry official Sergei Miroshnichenko said.
Lokomotiv offenseman Alexander Galimov was in critical condition with burns over 90 percent of his body, a doctor at the hospital said. He said the other survivor, a crew member, was in serious condition.
The plane was carrying players, coaches and officials of Lokomotiv, which is based in Yaroslavl, to a match in Minsk, KHL president Alexander Medvedev said in televised comments.
"There has been a terrible tragedy," Medvedev said after the league's opening match in the city of Ufa was interrupted by news of the crash, stunning spectators and sports officials. He announced a minute's silence and postponed the match.
Three Czech world champions, a legendary Slovak player and Swedish goaltender Stefan Liv were killed, officials said.
The Czech players were Jan Marek, Karel Rachunek and Josef Vasicek, all stars of the national side that won the world championship six times since 1996, the Czech embassy in Moscow said.
The Slovak foreign ministry said there was one Slovak victim, and that the only Slovak national on the passenger list was Pavol Demitra, a forward who led the national side at last year's World Championship. Demitra, the Slovakian national team captain, also played in the NHL for the St. Louis Blues and Vancouver Canucks
Canadian coach Brad McCrimmon and Latvian defenseman Karlis Skrastins were also among those killed.
McCrimmon, who took over as coach in May, was most recently an assistant coach with the Detroit Red Wings, and played for years in the NHL for Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Calgary, Hartford and Phoenix.
Detroit coach Mike Babcock said McCrimmon "wanted to be a head coach, so he went to Russia to do it."
"This is the darkest day in the history of our sport. This is not only a Russian tragedy, the Lokomotiv roster included players and coaches from 10 nations," said Rene Fasel, president of the international Ice Hockey Federation. "This is a terrible tragedy for the global ice hockey community."
Several hundred mourning fans wearing jerseys and scarves gathered in the evening at the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv stadium to pay their respects.
The names of all of the players on board the Yak-42 were not immediately clear on Wednesday.
"There has been a terrible tragedy," Kontinental Hockey League president Alexander Medvedev said in televised comments after the opening match of the league's season in the city of Ufa was interrupted when news of the crash came. He announced a minute of silence and postponed the match.
Video: Plane crash kills Russian hockey players (on this page)Swarms of police and rescue crews rushed to Tunoshna, a village with a blue-domed church on the banks of the Volga River. One of the plane's engines could be seen poking out of the river and a flotilla of boats combed the water for bodies. Divers struggled to heft the bodies of large, strong athletes in stretchers up the muddy, steep riverbank.
Citing a Rosaviatsia official, Interfax reported that the plane had trouble gaining altitude and hit an antenna near the runway.
The weather was sunny and clear at the time.
Russian TV station Rossiya-24 quoted local witnesses who said most of the plane was destroyed and burning pieces of fuselage were all that was left of the aircraft, NBC News reported.
Irina Pryakhova, who lives near the crash site, saw the plane going down.
"It was wobbling in flight, it was clear that something was wrong," she said. "It went down behind the trees and there was a bang and a plume of smoke."
She said rescuers pulled victims' bodies out of the Volga River. "I saw them pulling bodies to the shore, some still in their seats with seatbelts on," Pryakhova said.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin immediately sent the nation's transport minister to the site, 10 miles east of Yaroslavl.
Opening game of season
The hockey team was heading to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, where it was to play Thursday against Dinamo Minsk in the first game of the season.
The Kontinental Hockey League is an international club league that pits together teams from Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Slovakia.
Lokomotiv Yaroslavl is a leading force in Russian hockey and came third in the KHL last year. Lokomotiv was a three-time Russian League champion in 1997, 2002-2003.
The crash occurred while Russia was hosting an international political forum in Yaroslavl that President Dmitry Medvedev was expected to address this week.
Medvedev's spokeswoman, Natalya Timakova, said he expressed his condolences and would alter his plans for the forum.
The short- and medium-range Yak-42 has been in service since 1980 and dozens are still in service with Russian and other airlines.
Medvedev has announced plans to take aging Soviet-built planes out of service starting next year.
The crash was the third in Russia with a toll in the dozens in less than two years . In June a Tupolev Tu-134 jet slammed into a roadside while trying to land in fog in the northern Russian city of Petrozavodsk, killing 45 people.
In April 2010, Polish President Lech Kaczynski's Russian-built plane crashed near the western city of Smolensk in a thick fog, killing him and all 95 others on board.
An Antonov An-12 cargo plane crashed in August in Russia's Far East, killing 11, and an An-12 crash in Siberia in July killed seven.
Russia's transport industry also came under scrutiny in July after an overcrowded riverboat sank in the Volga, killing 122 people in an accident widely blamed on negligence and corruption that leads to safety violations.
The most recent fatal Yak-42 crash occurred in 2003, when a Ukrainian-operated craft crashed while landing in fog in Turkey, killing 75 people including Spanish troops returning from Afghanistan.
The Associated Press, Reuters and NBC News contributed to this report.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44422789/ns/world_news-europe/
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