43 Die In Plane Crash In Russia

Just yesterday, a terrible air crash in Russia killed about 43 people on board; almost the entire team of a top ice hockey club, including several foreign stars died in the crash. The medium-range Yak-42 aircraft which was carrying the city’s Lokomotiv ice hockey team to a match in Minsk, the capital of Belarus,  crashed and burst into flames shortly after takeoff from an airport near Yaroslavl in western Russia at about 4pm local time.

The disaster has established Russia as being the most dangerous place to fly as the number of aircraft fatalities this year surpasses even that of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Yak-42 plane which was about carrying 45 passengers failed to gain sufficient altitude, initial reports and a few eye-witness accounts claimed that the jet may have hit a local radar antenna and the twisted wreckage of the aircraft lay buried in the Tunoshna River.

Of the 45 people on the plane only two survived, 26-year-old player Alexander Galimov and a flight attendant. Among the deceased were players from Germany, Sweden and Slovakia. Notable amongst deceased were Alexander Karpovtsev, ’94 Cup Winner, three Czech stars – Jan Marek, Josef Vasicek and Karel Rachunek, thirty-one-year-old center Marek and 32-year-old defenceman Rachunek – world champions from 2010, and 31-year-old center Vasicek who had a world title from 2005.

Only this year about 121 people have died in air crashes in Russia. This air crash was particularly painful because hockey is a very popular sport in Russia and the loss represents a huge blow to the North American NHL (National Hockey League).