Grieving relatives and investigators were heading to eastern Ukraine today where a Russian airliner carrying 170 people home from a seaside resort crashed, killing everyone on board.
Vadim Seryogin, head of a rescue team
Rescue workers, joined by a fresh team of Russian specialists, worked through the night with lights powered by generators, wading through marsh searching for the plane's "black box" flight recorders.
Officials said the plane had probably been hit by lightning and then hurtled into the ground as the crew tried to manoeuvre out of a violent storm. But investigators warned against drawing any premature conclusions about the accident.
"Until the commission's work is complete, we can make no explanations or suppositions," Vadim Seryogin, head of a rescue team at the site, told Russia's First Channel television.
Ten crew and 39 children were among the dead in the crash, the second major loss of life involving a Russian airliner in two months. Most of the passengers were Russians but some Dutch nationals were also on board.
Russian television showed the first group of relatives arriving in the Russian Black Sea resort town on Anapa before being taken to the crash site to identify the dead. Others were due to fly in later in the day.
Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin, head of a commission probing the accident, was also heading to the site.