Bashkortostan Union of Journalists mourns tragic death of colleagues

UFA, 26 December 2016. /Bashinform News Agency, Galiya Nabieva/. Early in the morning of December 25 it was announced about the great tragedy in Russia: a crash of the TU-154 with dozens of passengers on board. The sad list included nine employees of the Russian TV companies: NTV (Michael Luzhetsky, Evgeny Tolstov and Oleg Pestov), "Zvezda" (Pavel Obukhov, Alexander Saratov and Valery Izhevsky) and "Channel One" (Vadim Denisov, Alexander Soidov and Dmitry Ivanov).

The Chairman of the Union of Journalists of the Republic Artur Davletbakov, the Bashkortostan regional branch of the Russian Union of Journalists express their most sincere condolences to the families of colleagues who died in the plane crash.

According to the Defense Ministry, there were 92 people on board: eight crew members and 84 passengers, including 68 artists of the Alexandrov ensemble and nine journalists. The plane, according to the law enforcement agencies, fell into the Black Sea about five kilometers from the coast, close to Anapa. The aircraft disappeared from radar screens early morning of December 25, 20 minutes after departure from Sochi. There it came from Chkalovsky airport for refuelling. As it is known, the aircraft was heading for Latakia in Syria, where the actors were preparing to congratulate servicemen on the New Year holidays.