Russian Plane Crash Kills Lokomotiv Yaroslavl Ice Hockey Team

Stefan Liv, Olympic gold medal winner and Sweden's national ice hockey team goalkeeper was among those who died in the plane crash

Rescuers seen at the crash site of Russian Yak-42 jet near the city of Yaroslavl, on the Volga River about 150 miles northeast of Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2011.

Russia is in mourning after almost the entire team of a top ice hockey club, including several foreign stars, died in a plane crash that killed 43 people.

The medium-range Yak-42 aircraft crashed and burst into flames shortly after takeoff from an airport near Yaroslavl in western Russia at about 4pm local time yesterday Wednesday Sept 7. It was carrying the city's Lokomotiv ice hockey team to a match in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, scheduled for Thursday night.



TV showed emergency officials wading out to blazing lumps of wreckage in the Volga river, about 160 miles north-east of Moscow. Seven crew and 36 members of the team and coaching staff died.

Among them were players from Germany, Sweden and Slovakia, as well as Brad McCrimmon, the club's Canadian coach. Doctors were fighting to save the life of two survivors – crew member Alexander Sizov and Alexander Galimov, who plays for Lokomotiv and Russia's national team. He is reported to have suffered terrible burns. - Guardian UK

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