TOMSK-(MaraviPost)-An-28 passenger Russian plane with at least 19 people on board that vanished from radars in Siberia while en route to Tomsk has landed and all passengers reportedly survived on Friday.
The emergencies ministry in the region confirmed the news in a statement.
According to the regional governor, Sergei Zhvachkin, the small airline operating regional airline Siberian Light Aviation was due to land in the regional capital Tomsk before the disappearance.
Zhvachkin added that the plane’s emergency beacon had been activated and two helicopters were dispatched to search for the missing plane.
The plane was located after helicopters were dispatched to search for it and all those on board had survived and were evacuated from the site, Reuters reported.
The incident comes after an An-26 plane crashed earlier this month in Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka peninsula, killing all 28 people on board.
An Antonov-28, the same type of plane that has gone missing over Tomsk, slammed into a Kamchatka forest in 2012 in a crash that killed 10 people. Investigators said both pilots were drunk at the time of the crash.
Antonov planes were manufactured during the Soviet era and are still used for civilian and military transport. However, recently the planes have been involved in numerous accidents.
Russian aviation safety standards have improved in recent years but accidents are rare, especially involving ageing planes in far-flung regions.
