Black box recovered from crashed Russian plane

The flight data recorder from a Russian Tu-154 military plane that crashed into the Black Sea on the weekend has been recovered, the Defence Ministry said Tuesday. The data recorder was found in wreckage on the seafloor about 1.6 kilometres from the coast of the Russian city of Sochi, according to the statement posted on […]

The flight data recorder from a Russian Tu-154 military plane that crashed into the Black Sea on the weekend has been recovered, the Defence Ministry said Tuesday.

The data recorder was found in wreckage on the seafloor about 1.6 kilometres from the coast of the Russian city of Sochi, according to the statement posted on the ministry’s website.

The crash, shortly after take-off on Sunday, is believed to have killed all 92 people aboard. Most of the passengers were members of an esteemed military band, the Alexandrov Ensemble, set to perform for troops in Syria, the flight’s destination.

About a dozen bodies and 150 separate remains have been recovered and are being sent to Moscow for identification, the Defence Ministry said. A massive search operation focusing on the seafloor across several kilometres is under way.

Authorities have said no trace of any explosive has been found on the recovered remains of victims or wreckage.

Investigators believe that the cause of the crash was either pilot error or a problem with the aircraft.

A surveillance camera video uploaded to YouTube purported to show a flash of light in the dark sky above Sochi around the time when the plane crashed, prompting speculation that there could have been an explosion.

Russian authorities, however, have widely excluded terrorism as a likely cause of the crash.

Last year a Russian commercial airliner travelling from the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh to the Russian city of St Petersburg crashed shortly after take-off, killing more than 200 people.

An affiliate of the terrorist group Islamic State claimed it placed a bomb aboard that plane in retaliation for Russia’s military campaign in Syria. (DPA)