Officials have allegedly located debris from a passenger plane carrying 28 people that went missing in the Russian Far East on Tuesday. The An-26 aircraft reportedly lost contact with air traffic control shortly before it was going to land in the settlement of Palana, located in the north of the remote Kamchatka peninsula. It is highly unlikely that there were any survivors, who had left earlier that day from the regional centre Petropavlovsk. Officials state that air traffic control lost contact with the aircraft roughly 9km outside of the Palana airport, just 10 minutes before its scheduled landing.
Unconfirmed eyewitness reports claim that the plane hit a rock as it was attempting to land, crashing on the coast instead. Fragments of the vessel were found both on the shore and in the sea. The passengers included six crew members, one child, and 22 other adults. The head of the local administration in Palana, Olga Mokhireva, was among the passengers. The cause of the crash remains unknown, however, officials believe it may have been due to poor weather. An investigation into the incident has been launched.
Read More: Debris from missing plane found on Russian Far East Kamchatka peninsula
