Russia believes that the cause of the Russian airliner crash ought to be looked for in German skies

A headquarters is being formed at Domodedovo airport to work with the relatives of the people who perished in the air crash, reported the State Civil Aviation Service of the Russian Transport Ministry.

Last night a Russian Tu-154 passenger air liner of the Bashkirskiye Avialinii (Bashkirian Air Lines) and a Boeing-757 freight aircraft of the DHL international air transportation company collided over Germany in the area of Lake Boden See at a height of 12,000 metres, killing all the 69 people on board of the Russian liner, and the 2 pilots of the Boeing aircraft.

According to reports from Ufa, capital of Bashkiria, on board of the Tu-154 were children of high-ranking people from Bashkiria.

The Bashkirskiye Avialinii company reports that according to the lists, on board of the crashed plane were 8 children under the age of 12 and 43 teen-agers born between 1986 and 1989.

The State Civil Aviation Service reports that the Boeing-747 freight aircraft followed an emergency course and the air controllers of Switzerland and Germany informed the Russian airliner of that. However, the Boeing kept changing its height in flight and the collision could not have been avoided.

The German side does not have any exact information on the causes of the accident.

The German authorities consider all that to have been an "unfortunate mishap".

In the meantime, the crew of the Russian liner was highly experienced and had excellent command of English, for they had for many years serviced flights in the Middle East. That is why the allegations of the German side about some "errors" of the Russian pilots are groundless. Apart from that, the Russian liner was fitted out with the most modern equipment warning of possible clashes in the sky.