.EMERCOM experts going to site of plane crash in N Siberia.

fy the causes of a turboprop crash, which carried away the lives of 15
people Monday.
Executives of the regional airline KATEKAVIA, the owner of the demised
plane, declined to comment on the situation.
The Antonov-24 turboprop crashed during a landing maneuver. It staked
ground 700 meters away from the airport's runway.
It had eleven passengers including a child and a four-strong crew.
According to the Russian Federal Service for Aviation, a total of
three crewmembers and a passenger survived the crash.
At the time of reporting, a team of ten rescue workers of EMERCOM's
Taimyr area branch and two specialized vehicles were working at the spot
of the accident.
Earlier information indicated that the plane was landing amid rainy
weather at Igarka airport.
KATEKAVIA started operations on the market of regional airline
services fourteen years ago. It transports passengers and cargoes along
regional air routes on scheduled and chartered flights.
Its fleet consists of twelve Antonov-24 turboprops that are based at
the airports of the territorial capital Krasnoyarsk, as well as in the
cities of Yakutsk, Nizhnevartovsk, and Ufa.
KATEKAVIA also hauls socially significant cargoes to destinations
outside the administrative boundaries of the huge Krasnoyarsk territory.
The schedule of regular flights for Tuesday features eight
destinations, including Igarka, the town of Mirny, which is a center of
diamond mining in the region of Yakutia-Sakha, and Yakutsk.
The airline that has a labor staff of about 300 people carried more
than 122,000 passengers in 2009.
In the meantime, the shift supervisor at the Cheremshanka airport in
Krasnoyarsk where the ill-fated turboprop had taken off from said it had
passed the pre-flight inspection and the airport's technicians had not
made any remarks on its technical condition.
"Absolutely all the planes that took off from Cheremshanka passed
scrupulous pre-flight tests and the inspectors didn't have any claims
against them," said Yelena Ivanov, the senior shift supervisor. "Otherwise
we wouldn't have let them take off."
She indicated that eight chartered and regular flights left the
airport for Igarka August 2 and all of them were performed by Antonov-24
turboprops belonging to KATEKAVIA.
Ivanova also surmised that the flight, which eventually ended in the
tragic accident had been chartered by the oil company Vankorneft.
Alexander Yakimov, the press officer
of




EMERCOM's Krasnoyarsk branch said the
surviving passenger of the demised plane, Sergei Issakov, was in a very
heavy condition.
The condition of the other three survivors -- captain Nikolai Kozlov,
second pilot Igor Kabanov and flight engineer Yevgeny Petrunin -- was
satisfactory and all of them were taking treatment in the surgery
department of the Igarka hospital.

.Number of lethal outcomes of N Siberian plane crash up to 12.

KRASNOYARSK, August 3 (Itar-Tass) - Number of lethal outcomes of
Monday's crash of an Antonov-24 turboprop near the town of Igarka, the
Arctic zone of the Krasnoyarsk territory in Eastern Siberia, has gone up
to twelve, as the only surviving passenger died in hospital because of
extremely heavy traumas.
The passenger, Sergei Issakov, was a police officer going on a
business trip to Igarka, spokespeople for the Krasnoyarsk territorial
branch of the Ministry for Emergency Situations and Civil Defense
/EMERCOM/.
The three surviving members of the crew --- captain Nikolai Kozlov,
second pilot Igor Kabanov and flight engineer Yevgeny Petrunin are in a
satisfactory condition. All of them are getting treatment at the surgery
department of Igarka's town hospital.
Authorities in Krasnoyarsk have opened a telephone hotline where one
can make references about the names of the dead and the survivors.
The turboprop belonging to the airline KATEKAVIA crashed Monday while
performing a maneuver to land at the Igarka airport.
At the time of landing, there was rainfall at the airport and a slight
wind of up 4 meters per second. The weather situation conformed to the
minimum safety requirements for that airport.
"However, the turboprop deflected rightwards when already on the final
approach," an EMERCOM spokesman said. "The plane staked ground 700 meters
away from the landing strip."
A fire broke out after the crash and it was extinguished later by the
airports rescue and emergency operations department.
Tuesday afternoon, a group of operatives from EMERCOM's Krasnoyarsk
department and rescue workers from the Taimyr Peninsula department were
working at the site of the crash. They target goal of their efforts was
the black boxes - flight recorders -from the turboprop,

.Venezuela's Chavez to stay away from Mersocur summit due to flu.

MEXICO CITY, August 3 (Itar-Tass) - Severe flu will not allow
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to attend a summit conference of Mercosur
-- the South American common market organization -- because of a severe
flu.
Chavez said about his illness in an interview with the Venezolana de
Television channel.
He indicated that has delegated Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro to the
summit conference, due to be held in the Argentine city San Juan. It was
the doctors who strongly recommended that he cancel the trip, Chavez said.
Mercosur leaders are going to meet against the background of an acute
conflict between Venezuela and Colombia. The Venezuelan government said
July 22 it was severing relations with Colombia after the latter country's
top officials had made charges against Vernezuela, saying it harbors on
its territory the activists of leftwing paramilitary groupings that have
been fighting the Colombian Armed Forces.
Venezuelan representatives condemned these charged immediatelhy and
dismissed the materials presented by Bogota as "overt lies and crude
falsifications."
Foreign Minister Hector Lacognata of Paraguay made a proposal on the
eve of the summit to discuss the conflict between Venezuela and Colombia
but Nicolas Maduro did not support it.
Nonetheless, participants in the summit will most likely raise the
problem in private conversations.
Mercosur includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Venezuela
is in the phase of joining South America's larges trading association.
-0-kle


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