Air disaster hits top Russian ice hockey team

A chartered jet carrying the Lokomotiv team has crashed, killing 43.

Travel Insurance News - 08/09/2011

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One of the top major-league ice-hockey teams in Russia was involved in a fiery air crash that has left 43 people dead and two survivors with serious injuries. The jet, a charter flight, was carrying the Lokomtiv team when it crashed on take-off.

According to reports, many members were aboard the jet, which was headed to Belarus, where the Lokomotiv team was scheduled to play the first match of the hockey season. The plane appears to hit trouble shortly after taking off, and reportedly burst into flames, before crashing to the ground.

Some reports from Russian media suggest the plane, a Yak-42, could have hit a radio mast. Witnesses describe seeing the plane burst into flames just after it took off from Tunoshna airport, which sits about 250kms to the northeast of the Russian capital, Moscow.

Part of the wreckage of the plane, along with some of the bodies, landed in the River Tunoshna, which runs into the Volga. All of the 11 foreigners on the plane died.

The foreign citizens on the jet include Canadian Brad McCrimmon, the team’s coach, and Swede Stefan Liv, the goalie. Survivors include Russian player Alexander Galimov, who was left with burns to 80 per cent of his body, and a member of the plane’s crew.

Vyacheslav Fetislov, chairman of the Kontinental Hockey League’s board of directors, called the accident an ‘irreparable loss’ in the world of ice hockey. Other players on the team come from countries like Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Germany.

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