Russian plane runs off Siberian runway and bursts into flames, killing about 150 passengers

(AP) A Russian passenger plane ran off the runway on landing early Sunday, hit a concrete barrier and burst into flames, a government spokeswoman said. About 150 people were reported killed in the crash in the Siberian city of Irkutsk.

The Sibir Airbus A-310 was carrying 200 people _ a crew of eight and 192 passengers _ on a flight from Moscow to Irkutsk, said Irina Andrianova, of the Emergency Situations Ministry. Many were children headed to nearby Lake Baikal on vacation, the Russian news agency ITAR-Tass said.

Rescue workers had recovered 65 bodies, said another ministry spokeswoman, Natalya Lukash. She said 55 people were injured and most of the other 145 people on board were feared dead.

ITAR-Tass and the Interfax news agency estimated the death toll at around 150, citing preliminary numbers from the regional prosecutor's office and transport ministry.

The plane was landing around 7:50 a.m. local time when it veered off the runway and hit a concrete barrier, bursting into flames, Andrianova said.

"It was traveling at a terrific speed," the spokeswoman said.

She said it took emergency workers more than two hours to put out the fire.

Russian television pictures showed smoke rising from the wreckage and firefighters clambering on top.

There was no word yet on the cause of the crash 2,600 miles east of Moscow.

Sibir is Russia's second-largest airline, carved out of the Siberian wing of the Soviet monopoly carrier Aeroflot.

Cash-strapped and saddled with aging aircraft, regional airlines whittled out of Aeroflot were once notorious for their disregard for safety. But in recent years crashes from equipment failure or pilot error have declined sharply.

In 2004 a Sibir Tu-154 was one of two planes lost in near-simultaneous crashes blamed on terrorist bombs. A total 90 people were killed.

Three years earlier, another Sibir plane was shot down by a stray Ukrainian missile fired during military exercises. All 78 people on board died.

In May, another Airbus aircraft crashed in stormy weather off Russia's Black Sea coast, killing all 113 people on board.

Airline officials said they believed the crash of the Armenian passenger plane was due to bad weather _ driving rain and low visibility.

Among other deadly crashes in Russia in recent years, a Tu-154 Russian passenger plane crashed in Siberia in July 2001, killing all 143 people on board.

And in March 1994, an Airbus A-310 belonging to Aeroflot went down near the Siberian city of Novokuznetsk, killing 70 people. Investigators said crash was caused mainly by the pilot's teenage son inadvertently disconnecting the autopilot.