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Small Jet Crashes in Moscow, No Victims
A small business jet crashed Tuesday during takeoff in the Vnukovo airport outside Moscow. The three crew members survived, no passengers were on board. Dozens of flights from Vnukovo had to be delayed, and incoming flights were redirected to other Moscow airports.
The plane was a Challenger 850 made by Canada’s Bombardier Aerospace. Moscow-based Fort-Aero had rented the aircraft from a Swiss company.
The Challenger was bound for Berlin. At 4.40 the chief pilot, a U.S. citizen Ashish Gasvami, received a takeoff permission. The jet caught fire as it was speeding down the runway in heavy snowfall. The preliminary investigation showed that after it had caught fire, the plane turned on its side, landing on its right wing.
Mr. Gasvami, his co-pilot Konstantin Sannikov and technical engineer Vyacheslav Lazarevich were taken to hospital with insignificant injuries.
The party which caused the crash is most likely to pay damages to the airlines which suffered a 3-hour standstill of the airport following the crash.
Fort Aero was unavailable for comment on Tuesday. The headquarters of Bombardier said its experts would release their conclusions on the cause of the crash later.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 14, 2007
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