Lokomotiv is a leading force in Russian hockey and came third in the KHL last year. Yaroslavl governor Sergei Vakhrukov promised the crowd that the Lokomotiv team would be rebuilt from scratch, prompting anger from some fans at a perceived lack of respect for the dead. Riot police stood guard as fans chanted sport songs in honor of the dead athletes. More than 2,000 mourning fans wearing jerseys and scarves and waving team flags gathered in the evening outside Lokomotiv’s stadium in Yaroslavl to pay their respects. “I saw them pulling bodies to the shore, some still in their seats with seatbelts on.” “It was wobbling in flight, it was clear that something was wrong,” said Prakhova. Resident Irina Prakhova saw the plane going down then heard a loud bang. Divers struggled to heft the bodies of large, strong athletes in stretchers up the muddy, steep riverbank. One of the plane’s engines could be seen poking out of the river and a flotilla of boats combed the water for bodies.
Swarms of police and rescue crews rushed to Tunoshna, a ramshackle village with a blue-domed church on the banks of the Volga River 10 miles (16 kilometers) east of Yaroslavl. Experts blame the poor safety record on the age of the aircraft, weak government controls, poor pilot training and a cost-cutting mentality. In recent years, Russia and the other former Soviet republics have had some of the world’s worst air traffic safety records. The plane was built in 1993 and belonged to a small Moscow-based Yak Service company. The cause of Wednesday’s crash was not immediately apparent, but Russian news agencies cited unnamed local officials as saying it may have been due to technical problems. The crash comes on top of an already mournful year for the NHL in which three of the league’s enforcers were found dead: Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien and recently retired Wade Belak. But there is still some hope,” said Alexander Degyatryov, chief doctor at Yaroslavl’s Solovyov Hospital. Officials said Russian player Alexander Galimov survived the crash along with a crewmember.
It had 45 people on board, including 37 passengers and eight crew, the ministry said. The plane was carrying the team from Yaroslavl to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, where they were to play Thursday against Dinamo Minsk in the opening game of the Kontinental Hockey League season.
Russian television showed a flaming fragment of the plane in the river as divers worked feverishly to recover bodies. Russian media said the plane struggled to gain altitude and then crashed into a signal tower, shattering into pieces. The weather was sunny and clear at the time. The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said the Yak-42 plane crashed into the shores of the Volga River immediately after leaving the airport near the western city of Yaroslavl, 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of Moscow. Russian NHL star Alex Ovechkin tweeted: “I’m in shock!!!!!R.I.P. The International Ice Hockey Federation said 27 players of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team were killed, along with 2 coaches and 7 club officials. Two other people on board were critically injured.īoth Russia and the world of hockey were left stunned by the deaths of so many international stars in one catastrophic event. Montreal has fired their head coach and general manager, Marc Bergevin, just one season after making a run to the Stanley Cup Final.TUNOSHNA, RUSSIA-A private Russian jet carrying a top ice hockey team slammed into a riverbank moments after takeoff Wednesday, killing at least 43 people in one of the worst plane crashes ever involving a sports team. The Canadiens sit last in the NHL with an 8-30-7 record, and have lost 13 of their past 14 games, including seven straight. At this point in the season, we felt it was in the best interest of the club to make a change," Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes said in a statement. "We would like to sincerely thank Dominique for his work and contributions to the Montreal Canadiens organization. The Canadiens fired Ducharme earlier on Wednesday, ending his 83 regular-season game tenure with a 23-46-14 record. Louis won a Stanley Cup with the Lightning in 2004 and a gold medal with Team Canada at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. The Laval, QC, native played 16 NHL seasons with the Lightning, Calgary Flames, and New York Rangers, registering 391 goals and 1,033 points in 1,134 games. He was inducted into the hockey Hall of Fame in 2018, his first year of eligibility. Louis was hired as the Columbus Blue Jackets' Special Teams Consultant in Jan, 2019. Martin St Louis is the coach for the rest of the season and then the Habs will re-assess things.