The president of the Russian republic of Tatarstan declared Monday a day of mourning as rescue crews continued to look for bodies in the wreckage of a Russian jetliner that crashed on landing a day earlier.
All 50 people on board, including the son of Tatarstan regional President Rustam Miinikhanov, died in the crash in Tatarstan's capital, Kazan.
The victims ranged in age from 13 to 87, according to a list of names the airline posted on its website. Among them was Lt. Gen. Alexander Antonov, the regional chief of Russia's Federal Security Service, and a British national.
"Not all the bodies have been located," Deputy Emergency Situation Situations Minister Vladimir Stepanov told local media Monday morning. "The main work will be completed today."
Officials do not know why Tatarstan Airlines flight 363 crashed. Part of the answer may lie in the Boeing 737's flight and data recorders. But they have yet to be located.
The plane, carrying 44 passengers and a crew of six, took off from Moscow's Domodedovo International Airport, about 700 kilometers (450 miles) west of Kazan.
The pilot tried two times to land before the plane slammed nose-first into the ground, officials told local media.
The jet was 23 years old and had been in service with at least eight airlines, including Air France, Uganda Airlines and Bulgaria Air, according to aviation industry websites.
In a November 2012 flight, it was forced to cut short a flight to Moscow and return to Kazan after losing cabin pressure, according to the website AeroInside.
Russia has tried to improve its checkered reputation for air safety in recent years.
In 2011, then-President Dmitry Medvedev grounded two classes of Soviet-era aircraft after a pair of crashes that killed more than 90 people, including a charter plane crash that killed an entire professional hockey team.
Medvedev said Russia would have to upgrade its aircraft fleet, step up safety standards and radically cut the number of airlines.
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