Technical failure ruled out as cause of Tu-134 crash

A preliminary analysis of information from flight recorders has shown that the engines of the Tu-134 passenger jet that crashed on Monday near the northern city of Petrozavodsk were operating normally, the Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK) said on Thursday. "MAK continues to analyze audio and flight data information registered by the [Tu-134] flight recorders. The audio information is seriously affected by noise and some of the information has to be recovered. A preliminary analysis has shown that the aircraft's engines were operational before the ground impact and no failure of the aircraft's systems has been registered," MAK said on its webpage. The RusAir Tu-134 jet took off from Moscow and was due to arrive in Petrozavodsk, the regional capital, at 12:04 a.m. on Tuesday (20:04 GMT Monday), but crash landed on a nearby highway, which was shrouded in fog. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued instructions to government agencies concerned to look into the possibility of early retirement of all Tu-134s. “I have instructed the [Transportation] Ministry to ensure the early withdrawal of Tu-134s from service. It is high time to do that,” Medvedev said during a visit to RIA Novosti newsroom on Thursday. The aircraft broke up and burst into flames on impact. Initially eight of the 52 people on board survived and were taken to local hospitals. On Wednesday a 10-year old boy, injured in the crash, died in a hospital, bringing the death toll to 45. The day after the accident, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said the air crash was caused by a combination of pilot error and bad weather. The bodies of those killed in the accident who are not from near the crash site are to be flown to Moscow on Thursday evening. Forty three of 45 bodies recovered from the crash site have been positively identified, according to the Karelian regional health authority.