Russian military jet with 91 people onboard crashes over Black Sea

A body has been found in the Black Sea after a Russian military jet with 92 people on board crashed shortly after take-off, the defence ministry said.

The plane was carrying more than 60 members of the renowned military choir and dance band, the Alexandrov Ensemble, better known as the Red Army Choir, for a concert at the Russian air base in Syria.

Nine members of the media were among the 84 passengers on board.

Eight crew were also on the plane.

The missing aircraft is a Tu-154, a Soviet-designed three-engine airliner.

It disappeared minutes after taking off over the Black Sea.

The plane had departed at 5:40am local time (0240 GMT) from Adler, south of Sochi.

Fragments of the plane have already been found at a depth of 50-70m about 1.5km (0.93 miles) from the Russian coast.

Some personal documents from those on board have also been recovered.

Russia’s RIA news agency, citing an unidentified security source, said preliminary data indicated the plane had crashed because of a technical malfunction.

It was not immediately possible to verify that report.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists it was too early to say what caused the crash.

“The President is waiting for the picture to be clear,” he said.

The plane was flying to Russia’s Hmeimim airbase outside the coastal Syrian city of Latakia, the ministry said.

The Tu-154 aircraft has been involved in a number of accidents in the past.

In April 2010 the then Polish president Lech Kaczynski was killed when a Tu-154 airliner crashed near Smolensk in western Russia.