Russian military plane crashes in Black Sea

A Russian military plane crashed Sunday in the Black Sea as it made its way to Syria with 92 people onboard, including more than 60 Red Army Choir members heading to celebrate the New Year with

troops.Local news agencies, citing the defence ministry, said the Tu-154 plane had crashed shortly after take-off at 5:40 am local time (0240 GMT) from the southern city of Adler where it had been refuelling.Defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told Russian news agencies that one body had been recovered six kilometres off the coast of the resort city of Sochi, as a frantic search operation continued to hunt for the missing.”Fragments of the Tu-154 plane of the Russian defence ministry were found 1.5 kilometres from the Black Sea coast of the city of Sochi at a depth of 50 to 70 metres,” the ministry said.The plane had been on a routine flight to Russia’s Hmeimim airbase in western Syria, which has been used to launch air strikes in Moscow’s military campaign supporting its ally President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s devastating civil war.

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