All 39 people aboard crash-landing Russian jetliner alive, 16 injured

Russian Defense Ministry experts have recovered flight data recorders of the Il-18 plane that crash-landed in Siberia earlier on Monday, according to the ministry.

"A special Russian Defense Ministry commission is working at the site of the Il-18 emergency landing, and its experts have demounted and recovered onboard recorders for delivery to a specialized laboratory and their inspection," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted a ministry source as saying.

Earlier in the day, the aircraft, belonging to the Russian Defense Ministry, with 39 people on board, crash-landed near the Tiksi airfield in Russia's Far Eastern Sakha Republic.

All people aboard the ill-fated plane, including 32 servicemen and seven crew members, have survived the crash-landing.

"According to preliminary information, there have been no fatal consequences," the government of the Sakha Republic said in a statement.

The ministry said all people injured had been delivered by four helicopters of the local division of the country's Emergencies Ministry to a hospital in the settlement of Tiksi.

A medical team aboard an Il-76 aircraft equipped with medical modules has been dispatched to the Sakha Republic to help transfer the injured people to hospitals in Moscow and St. Petersburg, it added.

The accident may be caused by a strong side wind, according to the Sakha government statement.

source: Xinhua