Russian Plane Crashes in Siberia

M O S C O W, July 3 -- A Russian airliner carrying 143 people crashed and burst into flames near the Siberian city of Irkutsk, the Ministry of Emergency Situations said.

The Tu-154 plane belonging to the Vladivostokavia airlinedisappeared from radar screens about 9:10 p.m. Moscow time, news reports said.

The Interfax news agency said preliminary reports indicated allthe 133 passengers and 10 crew aboard had died. The plane was enroute from Yekaterinburg to Vladivostok, the major port on Russia'sPacific Coast.

The wreckage was discovered near the village of Budyonnovka,about 20 miles from Irkutsk, which is 2,600 miles east of Moscow.

Aviation Fell Into Decline

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, civil aviation fellinto a steep decline as hundreds of small airlines were spun offfrom the onetime monolithic Aeroflot.

Russia and other former Soviet republics were plagued by aircrashes as aircraft maintenance and supervision deteriorated. Butin recent years, the number of crashes appeared to have lessened.

The most recent major crash involving Russia was in October 2000,when an Il-18 transporting Russian soldiers crashed in Georgia,killing 83 people.

The three-engine Tu-154, first put into commercial service in1972, is the workhorse of Russia's domestic airlines and widelyused throughout the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as wellas in China.