Plane with 7 aboard goes missing in Russia

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) – A commercial plane with seven people aboard went missing in Russia’s Arctic Yakutia region on Wednesday, according to the Emergency Ministry.

“On June 22, the operational duty shift of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) received information that An-30M aircraft did not land at the appointed time at the airport of the settlement of Olenek,” the ministry said in a statement.

A Mi-8 helicopter and an An-26 aircraft flew out to search for the missing plane.

The Republic of Sakha-Yakutia is located in the Russian Far East along the Arctic Ocean and is one of the most uninhabited areas in the world with roughly 1 million people living within an area of over 3 million square kilometers (1.16 million square miles).