Plane crash in Russia: relatives arrive to identify bodies of victims

Fifty-two people remained in hospitals Monday after the airliner careened off a rain-slicked runway into adjacent garages on Sunday and burst into flame, said Viktor Beltsov, spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry. Seventy-five of the 203 people aboard the plane survived, he said.

It was the second major commercial airline crash in two months in Russia, the AP reports.

Preliminary data gathered by the commission investigating the crash indicated that the braking system on the Airbus A310 operated by Russian airline S7 had failed, Russian news agencies reported, citing unnamed sources.

Transport Minister Igor Levitin said the aircraft's two recorders had been recovered and were being analyzed.

The S7 press office said there were 193 passengers on the Moscow-Irkutsk flight Sunday and a crew of 10 aboard. Emergency Ministry spokeswoman Natalia Lukash said three people whose names were not on the passenger list were pulled unconscious from the wreckage; it was not clear if they had been on the ground or were flying as unregistered passengers.