THE 48 passengers and crew onboard a passenger plane that crashed in Russia’s far east have died, the head of the country’s Amur region said in a statement today.

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Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said earlier that it had found the burning fuselage of the twin-turbo prop plane on a hillside south of its planned destination in the town of Tynda, more than 4,350 miles east of Moscow.

The plane, operated by the Siberia-based Angara Airlines, had initially departed from Khabarovsk before making its way to Blagoveshchensk on the Russian-Chinese border and onwards to Tynda.

Regional governor Vasily Orlov said rescuers struggled to reach the site due to its remote location, nine miles south of Tynda.

Russia’s Interfax news agency said there were adverse weather conditions at the time of the crash, citing unnamed sources in the emergency services. 

Several Russian news outlets also reported that the aircraft was almost 50 years old.

Governor Orlov announced three days of mourning in the Amur region to mark the disaster, which he described as a “terrible tragedy.”

The authorities have launched a probe on the charge of flight safety violations that resulted in multiple deaths, a standard procedure in aviation accidents.