In Russia, 44 people died and eight were left seriously injured when a Russian passenger plane crash and burned while trying to land on a motorway
The Soviet-era Tupolov jet, on a flight from Moscow, tried to land just before midnight local time on a motorway two kilometres from Petrozavodsk airport in the Karelia region of northern Russia.
The BBC reports that the aircraft belonged to RusAir, a privately-owned, Moscow-based airline that specialises in charter flights in western Russia and eastern Europe.
The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, although the 24-hour news channel Vesti quoted aviation sources as saying that bad weather in the area at the time could have been a factor. Thick fog and heavy rain were reported at the time of the crash.
Human error was also not ruled out.
