The Russian defence ministry on Tuesday said that they have found a flight recorder of the military plane which crashed into the Black Sea over the weekend with 92 people on board.
The plane, a Tu-154 jet, was carrying at least 60 members of the Red Army choir who were heading to Syria to entertain the Russian troops in the country for the New Year celebrations. Reports state that the plane went down off the city of Sochi soon after it took off on Sunday.
The ministry released a statement saying that the flight recorder was found a mile from the shore early Tuesday morning. According to a state televised footage, rescue workers were seen carrying a container with a bright orange object on an inflatable boat on the Black Sea. Reports state that there were no survivors in the incident and a massive search to locate their remains is underway in the sea.
Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov during a televised briefing on Monday said authorities do not believe the plane crash was an act of terrorism, however, investigators are yet to confirm the cause of the crash.
"There could be various causes – they are being analysed by specialists, experts, the Investigative Committee. Currently, the main versions do not include an act of terror," Sokolov said. He also added that although the search operations are on, some of the bodies could have been carried off by the current to Abkhazia, the Georgian separatist region.
A spokesperson for the Sochi-based search and rescue branch of the emergency ministry, Rimma Chernova, said that it was confirmed that the parts found underwater were of the crashed Russian plane. "The debris is at the depth of 27 metres one mile from shore," spokeswoman Chernova told AFP.
The Russian military also added that the divers had found two elements of the plane's control mechanism."
