Nando Times

MOSCOW (May 22, 2001 09:53 p.m. EDT) - According to emergency officials, a Russian military plane crashed Tuesday evening in western Russia, and the fate of the seven people aboard was unclear.

The An-12 operated by the Russian Defense Ministry took off from a base in the town of Rzhev and lost contact with ground controllers soon afterward, at about 5 p.m. local time, said Viktor Beltsov, spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry.

Emergency crews rushed to the area to look for signs of the plane, and found the hull and fragments of the plane about 120 miles northwest of Moscow, Defense Ministry chief spokesman Nikolai Deryabin said on state-run RTR television.

The fate of those aboard was unclear. It had been carrying "technical cargo," Deryabin said.

The cause of the crash was under investigation. Small Russian planes see frequent malfunctions, and the underfunded armed forces have long been short of maintenance equipment.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), May 22, 2001