An airport worker has died and 18 people were injured when a passenger plane skidded off the runway after landing at Sochi airport in strong winds and heavy rain.
Russia’s Transportation Ministry said on September 1 that, while landing in bad weather, the aircraft skidded off the runway and into a riverbed before catching fire.
The airport worker died of a heart attack while assisting with the evacuation of 164 passengers and six crew from the burning wreckage, Transportation Minister Yevgeny Ditrikh said.
The airplane, a Boeing 737, was operated by Utair and was arriving from Moscow.
The cause of the crash has not been determined.
State-run TASS news agency quoted a source as saying the flight-data recorders of the aircraft had been recovered and are in satisfactory condition.
In early August, 18 people were killed when a helicopter crashed after a midair collision in Siberia. Both aircraft were owned by Utair-Helicopter Services, a unit of Utair.
The passengers were workers heading to their shift at an oil-pumping station in eastern Siberia.