Vladimir Putin orders probe into Syria-boud Russian military plane crash

President Vladimir Putin has ordered the government to probe the crash of a Syria-bound military plane carrying 92 people including more than 60 Red Army Choir members, the Kremlin said Sunday. “Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to form and head a state commission to investigative the crash of the Tu-154 plane in Sochi,” the Kremlin said in a statement, adding that Putin expressed his deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims of the crash. [caption id=“attachment_3049380” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo of Russian President Vladimir Putin. AP[/caption] A Russian military plane crashed Sunday in the Black Sea as it made its way to Syria with 92 people onboard, including more than 60 Red Army Choir members heading to celebrate the New Year with troops. Local news agencies, citing the defence ministry, said the Tu-154 plane had crashed shortly after take-off at 5:40 am local time (0240 GMT) from the southern city of Adler where it had been refuelling. Defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told Russian news agencies that one body had been recovered six kilometres off the coast of the resort city of Sochi, as a frantic search operation continued to hunt for the missing. “Fragments of the Tu-154 plane of the Russian defence ministry were found 1.5 kilometres from the Black Sea coast of the city of Sochi at a depth of 50 to 70 metres,” the ministry said. The plane had been on a routine flight to Russia’s Hmeimim airbase in western Syria, which has been used to launch air strikes in Moscow’s military campaign supporting its ally President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s devastating civil war. Among the plane’s 84 passengers were Russian servicemen as well as 64 members of the Alexandrov Ensemble, the army’s official musical group also known as the Red Army Choir, and its conductor Valery Khalilov. They were headed to Syria to participate in New Year celebrations at the airbase. There were also eight crew members onboard, the ministry said. Nine journalists were among the passengers, with state-run channels Pervy Kanal, NTV and Zvezda saying they each had three staff onboard the flight. A list of passengers published by the defence ministry also included Elizaveta Glinka, a doctor and charity worker who serves on the Kremlin human rights council. Mikhail Fedotov, who heads the council, said Glinka was travelling to Syria to bring medication to a university hospital in the coastal city of Latakia near the airbase, agencies reported.