Four Dead After Passenger Plane With 16 People Aboard Crash-Lands in Eastern Siberia

A plane was flying from Irkutsk to Kazachinskoye and crashed just 4 kilometres from the runway, the emergency services said.

Four people have died and five more were injured following the crash-landing of an L-410 aircraft with 14 passengers and 2 crew members in Russia's Irkutsk Region earlier on Sunday, the local authorities said.

"The L-410 plane, which made a hard landing in the taiga, had 16 people on board, two of them are crew members", an emergency services spokesperson said, adding that a Mi-8 helicopter has been dispatched to search for the aircraft.

The Russian Investigative Committee said that a criminal case has been launched for violating security rules.

Earlier in the day, a regional governor said that one of the passengers told him on the phone that there was no fire at the site of the crash but passengers were trapped inside the plane.