Boeing-737 passenger plane crashed during landing at the airport of Rostov-on-Don in Russia, TASS reports citing sources at emergency services.
The tragedy occurred when the aircraft was landing. The jetliner of FlyDubai airline crashed some 253 meters from the runway. The plane fell to the ground at an angle, scattering bodies of passengers and fragments of the airplane on the area of about 150 meters.
There were 55 passengers and seven crew members, including foreigners, on board. The crash left no survivors.
It was said that the cause of the crash could be strong gusts of wind. The version of a terrorist attack is excluded.
The airport of Rostov-on-Don Airport is closed, all flights are being sent to neighboring airports.
In pictures: Boeing 737 crashes in Russia during landing
According to LifeNews, the aircraft belonged to FlyDubai airlines and was flying from Dubai. Having hit the ground, the plane broke into pieces and caught fire. The fire had already been extinguished.
The Ministry for Transport considers several versions of the Boeing-737 crash in Rostov-on-Don, but there is no version of a terrorist attack. The cause of the tragedy, in which 62 people were killed, could be either a pilot error or storm winds: the pilots were trying to land the jetliner under very difficult weather conditions.
Weather conditions were not supposed to become news for air controllers and pilots: a storm warning had been published on the website of the regional EMERCOM department on 18 March. The power of wind at the time of landing was 12 meters per second with gusts up to 19 meters.
According to Flightradar24, prior to the crash of FlyDubai Boeing, another aircraft of Aeroflot airline was trying to land at the airport of Rostov-on-Don three times, but the plane then flew to another airport in the city of Krasnodar.