Air crash: 100 feared dead

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33520, 29 April 1974, Page 13

Air crash: 100 feared dead

(VZ P A.-Reuter—Copyright)

MOSCOW, April 28. More than 100 people were feared killed when a Soviet airliner crashed

and exploded in a ball of flame just after take-off at Leningrad, according to

Westerners arriving in Moscow.

The Western travellers say that they saw the aircraft, an Ilyushin-18, burning in a field two miles from the end of the runway.

Ground staff at the airport told them that more than 100 people being flown from Leningrad to the city of Krasnodar in Southern Soviet Union had been killed.

The crash was the first

i I reliably reported in the Soviet Union this year. But there was no official confirmation of the disaster. News of big accidents is I normally kept under strict secrecy in the Soviet Union [and leaks out only when foreigners are involved. i One of the travellers who ■saw the wreckage said, “It ■ was just a huge ball of ■flame. There were cars ■ stopped all along the road land people were running (across the fields towards it." “We saw a stream of ! ambulances heading out. I from the city. When we got to the airport a ground hostless told us it was believed more than 100 people were dead.” The Ilyushin-18, a four-en-Igined turbo-prop airliner, is the oldest of Aeroflot’s Ilyushin series. It was first introduced in 1959 and can carry a total of 122 passengers with up to eight crew and cabin staff. It was not known how many were aboard at the time of the crash, but most Soviet airliners travel full. Next week is the Soviet May Day holiday and many people were travelling home this weekend.