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Press-service of Russian Emergency Situations Ministry

Red Army Choir members killed in Tu-154 air disaster

The Russian Tupolev-154 air disaster on Christmas day, leading to the demise of 92 passengers on board, including all members of the Alexandrov Choir, has been a monumental blow to the country.

Published: December 26, 2016, 9:39 am

    The ill-fated plane had also carried journalists and charity workers, including Elizaveta Glinka who had worked tirelessly to aid the children of Donbass.

    Russian Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov, told RT that the Tu-154 crash just off Sochi’s coast, has to be investigated. According to Sokolov, a “technical problem or piloting error” could have led to the disaster and not only terrorism.

    “Today, the main theories do not include terrorism, so we assume that either technical problems or a piloting error may have been the cause. But I stress that only an investigation, along with a special technical Ministry of Defense committee will tell us for sure,” the minister said during a briefing.

    The Tu-154 was initially supposed to refuel in the city of Mozdok in North Ossetia, but due to bad weather the plane was redirected to the airport in Adler, a Black Sea resort, “therefore, nobody knew beforehand that the plane would refuel at the airport in Sochi,” a security source told TASS.

    After arriving in Adler, “only two border guards and one customs officer came onboard, and only one navigator shortly left the plane to control refueling,” the source added.

    The death of Elizaveta Glinka, head of the Fair Help Foundation have left many Russians as well as Syrians devastated. She was one of the 92 souls on the Tu-154 transport plane, which included 84 passengers and eight crew members. It went missing over the Black Sea shortly after refueling at an airport near Sochi.

    Most of the passengers however, were members of the Alexandrov Ensemble, the official choir of the Russian Armed Forces, known to most outside Russia as the famous Red Army Choir.

    They were traveling from Moscow to the Russian military base in Khmeimim near Latakia, Syria, to take part in a Christmas celebration with the troops deployed there. The conductor of the choir, and composer Valery Khalilov, also perished in the crash.

    The Red Army Choir had performed in every major conflict abroad since Alexander Alexandov formed the ensemble in 1926. President Putin, restored the prestige of the choir after some neglect, and the music remains as popular as ever in Russia as well as worldwide.

    The choir will continue, but it will have to be re-built from the ground up, while the voices silenced in the disaster will continue to haunt many.

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    karin@praag.org

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