All 170 people are believed to have died after a Russian Tu-154 jet plane crashed near the city of Donetsk in east Ukraine on Tuesday, said an official from the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry.
Meanwhile, the deputy head of Pulkovo Airlines, to which the crashed plane belonged, also said there was no information on survivors.
The airliner, with 160 passengers and 10 crew members aboard on a flight from Anapa in southern Russia to St. Petersburg, disappeared from radar screens when it was over Ukraine.
According to preliminary information, the airplane crashed after it entered a zone of severe turbulence, the head of the Russian Federal Air Navigation Service Alexander Neradko said.
Meanwhile, Interfax Ukraine reported that a fire had broken out on board the plane shortly before it crashed.
The following is a summary of the three major air crashes in Russia since 2004:
July 9, 2006 -- At least 120 people were killed when an A-310 jet of the Russian airline Sibir carrying 192 passengers and eight crew members veered off the runway and hit a building during its landing at the Irkutsk airport.
After colliding with the building, the jet burst into flames.
Technical malfunctions and human error were among the likely causes of the crash, the Prosecutor General's Office said.
The jet had traveled to Irkutsk from Moscow's Domodedovo airport. Many of the passengers aboard were children going for a vacation to Russia's famous Lake Baikal near Irkutsk.
Aug. 24, 2004 -- A Russian Tu-134 passenger jet and a Tu-154 airliner crashed almost simultaneously after taking off from Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, killing all 89 people aboard the two planes.
The Tu-134, carrying 43 people, had spiraled to the ground and did not catch fire, which indicated that the engine had been shut down in the air.
The Tu-154, carrying 46 people, issued an SOS alert and then disappeared from radar screens moments later. The wreckage of the jet was found in the Rostov region and early indications suggested it had exploded in midair.
Federal Security Service spokesmen said an initial study of the wreckage showed no terrorist act had been carried out aboard the two planes, and that technical failure, low-quality fuel, fueling violations or pilot error might have been to blame.
However, Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov told President Vladimir Putin that terrorism could not been ruled out.
(Xinhua News Agency August 23, 2006)
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