A Russian Antonov An-24 passenger aircraft carrying 46 people including children and crew crashed in the remote Amur region of Russia’s Far East on July 24. According to the Russian Emergencies Ministry, debris from the plane was found shortly after it disappeared from radar while on its final approach to Tynda Airport, near the Chinese border.
The ill-fated aircraft, operated by Siberia-based Angara Airlines, was on a scheduled flight along the Khabarovsk–Blagoveshchensk–Tynda route when it lost contact with air traffic controllers in poor visibility conditions, prompting a frantic search operation by rescue teams.
Early reports suggest that the plane vanished during its second landing attempt after an initial approach to Tynda Airport failed. A communication checkpoint just kilometres away from the runway marked the last point of radar contact. Search crews later confirmed the discovery of wreckage strewn across the rugged terrain of the eastern Amur wilderness.
Regional governor Vasily Orlov, citing preliminary information, said that there were 43 passengers onboard, including five children, along with six crew members. Conflicting reports from emergency services later revised the number to 40 passengers and six crew, with two children among those listed. The fate of those onboard remains uncertain, as casualty figures have yet to be officially confirmed.
“There is no contact with the aircraft. It failed to pass standard approach checkpoints near its final destination,” a Russian official was quoted as saying by Interfax. The Russian aviation disaster comes on the heels of two other high-risk incidents within a week, further fuelling concerns over aviation safety lapses globally.
On July 21, a near-collision was narrowly avoided at Mexico City International Airport, where an AeroMexico regional jet landed directly in front of a Delta Air Lines Boeing 737, which had just begun its takeoff roll with 150 people on board. Delta Flight 590 aborted its takeoff just in time, avoiding a catastrophe by mere seconds. An official investigation has been launched into the grave breach of runway protocol, which could have resulted in a mass-casualty disaster.
Worse still, on July 21, tragedy struck in Dhaka, Bangladesh, when a Bangladesh Air Force F-7 BGI training jet crashed into a school campus in Uttara, killing at least 27 people and injuring 78 others, according to local media. Most of the victims were children under the age of 12, many suffering fatal burn injuries in what is now being described as Bangladesh’s worst aviation disaster in decades. The government has declared a national day of mourning.
The crash of the An-24 is not the first aviation disappearance in Russia’s eastern wilderness. In September 2024, a Robinson R66 helicopter with three people aboard vanished over the Zeya district also in Amur during an unregistered flight, and was never found.
The treacherous, under-monitored terrain of Russia’s Far East has long been regarded as a high-risk airspace. Severe weather, inadequate infrastructure, poor radar coverage, and aging Soviet-era aircraft such as the An-24 have contributed to a string of deadly incidents, many of which receive limited international media attention due to information blackouts and lack of transparent investigations.
The Antonov An-24, a twin turboprop aircraft designed in the Soviet Union in the 1950s, was once a workhorse of regional aviation. However, many of the airframes still in operation are decades old, raising questions about maintenance standards, airworthiness, and compliance with modern safety protocols.
While some variants have been upgraded, several aircraft in use particularly in Siberia and the Russian Far East lack modern avionics and collision-avoidance systems, often operating in harsh climates under less-than-ideal infrastructure conditions.
No official statement has been made by Angara Airlines as of the time of reporting, and authorities have yet to confirm whether any distress signals were received prior to the crash.Behind the technical failures and bureaucratic negligence lie dozens of human lives families, children, crew members now feared lost in the cold wilderness of the Far East.
The tragedy is compounded by the Russian government’s track record of opaque investigations and delayed release of factual information, leaving grieving families in anguish and global aviation experts without vital data.
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