Investigators have found that a plane that crashed in the south of Russia on Saturday attempted to descend too fast, possibly because of an airspeed indicator failure, Kommersant daily said on Wednesday.
All six people on board, including two Myanmar nationals, were killed when an An-148 plane on a test flight crashed on Saturday in the village of Garbuzovo in the Belgorod region.
The plane crashed while carrying out descent tests. Investigators say the high speed caused critical pressure in the plane's engines, causing them to ignite and the plane to explode in mid air, a source close to the committee probing the incident told the paper.
Plane parts were found 1.5 kilometers away from the site where the bodies of the crew were discovered.
There has been no official confirmation of Kommersant's report, although the Russian Investigative Committee has admitted that the crash was caused by a technical failure.
The Moscow Inter-regional Investigative Directorate on Transport said on Wednesday airspeed indicator failure was only one of the possible causes of the crash. Investigators are also looking at pilot error and a defective fuel gauge as possible reasons, the directorate said.
The aircraft, which belonged to the Voronezh Aircraft Plant, went off the radar screens at 10:40 Moscow time [07:40 GMT] and crashed shortly afterwards. The plane was being tested prior to delivery to Myanmar, which ordered two last year for government use.
MOSCOW, March 9 (RIA Novosti)
