Russian President Vladimir Putin has postponed a planned trip to Sochi to closely monitor the investigation of the passenger plane crash outside Moscow that had no survivors.
Russia’s transportation minister Maxim Sololov said Sunday that “judging by everything, no one has survived this crash” of the An-148 regional jet that went down a few minutes after takeoff Sunday.
Soklov did not specify the number of people on board when the Saratov Airlines flight took off from Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport for Orsk, a city about 1500 kilometres (1000 miles) to the southeast.
Russian news reports said there were 65 passengers and six crew members.
Putin was to meet Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Monday in the Black Sea resort where the president has an official residence.
Instead, Abbas will meet with Putin in Moscow in the latter part of Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies.