BREAKING: Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin presumed dead in plane crash near Moscow
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Photo By: Rosaviatsia
Russian authorities say Prigozhin was one of ten passengers listed for the flight, although it is not yet clear whether he was on board at the time.
A business jet en route from Moscow to St Petersburg crashed Wednesday, killing all ten people on board, Russian emergency officials said.
The jet reportedly belonged to Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner private military company.
Russia’s civilian aviation regulator, Rosaviatsia, confirmed that Prigozhin was on the passenger list. However, it was not immediately clear if he had boarded the flight when it went down. State news agency Tass cited emergency officials as saying that the plane carried three pilots and seven passengers. The authorities said they were investigating the crash, which occurred in the Tver region more than 100 kilometres north of Moscow.
Flight tracking data shows a private jet registered to Wagner that Prigozhin had used previously took off from Moscow on Wednesday evening and its transponder signal disappeared minutes later. The signal was lost in a rural region where there are no nearby airfields where the jet could have landed safely.
Prigozhin listed as passenger of plane crashed in Russia’s Tver region — aviation agency
Russia’s Federal Agency for Air Transport has launched an investigation into the crash of the Embraer plane in the Tver Region on Wednesday, the agency said noting that Yevgeny Prigozhin was among the passengers.
“An investigation into the Embraer plane crash that occurred in the Tver Region this evening has been launched. According to the passenger list, the first and last name of Yevgeny Prigozhin was included in this list,” the agency noted.
The Embraer business jet crashed in the Tver Region near the settlement of Kuzhenkino. According to preliminary data, all 10 people on board the plane have died.
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