Russian officials have on Wednesday announced that a passenger playing carrying KHL team Lokomotiv has crashed, killing 36 of 37 passengers and seven of eight crew members. Latvian Karlis Skrastins plays for the team.

Anecdotal sources suggest that one survivor was a crew member and the other was player Aleksandr Galimov. Both are believed to be in hospital in a serious condition.

There is no official information yet as to whether or not Skrastins was in fact onboard the plane.

The plane was travelling to Minsk where Lokomotiv were set to play Dinamo Minsk in their opening game of the season on Thursday. Skrastins was expected to be playing in the game.

Lokomotiv spokesman Vladimir Malkov told Baltic News Service (BNS) that, ‘it is true that a plane carrying the Lokomotiv team crashed’, also adding that, ‘currently we have no other information but one or two people are in a critical situation.’

Malkov could not confirm the players who had boarded the plane as he had not been present at the time.

Russian law enforcement bodies said that the Yakovlev service Yak-42 airplane departed from Tunoshna airport near Yaroslavl but lurched to the left soon after take off, landing 500 meters from the airport.

Story translated from: http://www.dinamoriga.eu/lv/news/view/tragedija-jaroslavla