Plane Carrying 71 Crashes Near Moscow

A Russian plane that was carrying 71 passengers crashed near Moscow not long after taking off from a Moscow airport on Sunday, TIME reports.

The transportation minister has since said that there were no survivors.

The regional jet fell off from radar screens just a few minutes after departing from Domodedovo Airport en route to Orsk, a city approximately 1,000 miles southeast of Moscow.

Parts of the Saratov Airlines plane were found in the Ramenskoye area, just 25 miles from the airport. Television footage showed them strewn across a snowy field.

No on the ground casualties were reported.

"Judging by everything, no one has survived this crash," Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said on Sunday. Although Sokolov didn't provide the number of people on board, news reports claim the airliner held 65 passengers and six crew members.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was scheduled to travel to Sochi, where he was to meet with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, but has put off the trip to monitor the investigation into the incident.

The plane that crashed was developed in the early 2000s and manufactured in both Ukraine and Russia. It had been flying since 2010, but took a two-year break between 2015-17 because of a shortage of parts. It re-entered service a year ago, in February 2017.

The last large crash in Russia happened on Dec. 25, 2016, when a Tu-154 operated by the Russian Defense Ministry on its way to Syria crashed into the Black Sea after taking off in Sochi. All 92 people on the plane died.