WATCH: The scene of the TU-134 crash near Petrozavodsk airport in northwestern Russia on June 21. (Reuters video)
Forty-four people have been killed in a passenger-plane crash in thick fog in northwestern Russia, with eight survivors hospitalized in critical condition.
Local media report the RusAir aircraft broke up and burst into flames after coming down on a highway near the airport in Petrozavodsk, its planned final destination in Karelia, which borders Finland.
Elissan Shendelovich, the doctor in charge at Karelia Republic hospital, told Reuters that six people had been admitted there, four of them in “grave condition.”
According to Interfax, bodies littered the highway.
At least one foreigner, a Swedish man, was among the dead.
Russian authorities said eight children were on board. One is reported to have survived and is in critical condition.
A sign for the nearby airport next to debris from the airline tragedy at Petrozavodsk on June 21
The plane reportedly came very close to hitting nearby houses.
The plane was traveling from Moscow and crashed shortly before midnight.
The plane was a Russian-made Tu-134 jet.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recently criticized the kinks in domestically made planes and the nation’s poor safety record.
compiled from agency reports