WASHINGTON, November 18 (RIA Novosti) – US officials and Boeing representatives will travel to Russia on Monday to assist in the investigation of the crash of a Boeing 737 in the city of Kazan over the weekend that killed all 50 people on board, US transportation officials told RIA Novosti.
A three-person delegation from the US National Transportation Safety Board plans to leave for Russia “as soon as possible” to assist officials there with the investigation of the crash of the plane operated by Tatarstan Airlines, NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss told RIA Novosti.
US officials and Boeing representatives will travel to Russia on Monday to assist in the investigation of the crash of a Boeing 737 in the city of Kazan over the weekend that killed all 50 people on board, US transportation officials told RIA Novosti.
The team will be led by Dennis Jones, a senior air safety investigator with the federal agency responsible for investigating civilian aviation accidents in the United States, Weiss said.
Boeing, the US aerospace giant that made the 23-year-old plane, will also send four representatives to Russia, while the US Federal Aviation Administration, the national aviation authority of the United States, will send one.
An FAA spokeswoman told RIA Novosti that the US delegation is set to fly out Monday evening.
Boeing could not immediately be reached for comment Monday morning. The company said in a statement Sunday, however, that a team from the firm could “provide technical assistance to the investigation at the request … of Russia’s investigating authority, the Interstate Aviation Committee.”
The Tatarstan Airlines plane was carrying 44 passengers and six crew from Moscow to Kazan when it crashed at Kazan Airport on Sunday at about 7:30 p.m. local time (1530 GMT).
The precise cause of the accident in the capital of Russia’s republic of Tatarstan is not yet known, but terrorism has been ruled out.
