Plane carrying 71 people crashes outside of Moscow

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Fragments of the plane were discovered Sunday outside of Moscow.  (STRINGER/REUTERS)

A passenger jet crashed outside of Moscow minutes after taking off, killing all 71 people aboard, according Russian news agencies.

The Saratov Airlines An-148 lost radio contact moments after it departed Domodedovo Airport at about 2:20 p.m. local time, according to Russian news agencies.

“The crew and passengers had no chance of surviving,” an unidentified official told the Interfax news agency.

Debris was discovered in the area west of Moscow where the plane crashed Sunday.  (STRINGER/REUTERS)

Fragments of the Russian jet and body parts were discovered in Stepanovskoye, a village located southeast of the Russian capital.

The 65 passengers and six crew members were headed for Orsk, a southern Russian city near the border with Kazakhstan, the TASS news agency reported.

All the passengers were from the city and surrounding Orenburg province, regional government spokesman Sergei Sheremetsinsky told Interfax.

The nation’s Investigative Committee indicated to Russian media it’d open a criminal probe to look for possible safety violations or reckless behavior.

Russian media reports indicated an An-148, similar to the one seen here, crashed outside of Moscow.(ANATOLY MALTSEV/EPA-EFE/REX/SHUT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full investigation into what caused the crash, and offered his condolences to the families of those killed.

“The president instructed the government to create a special commission in connection with the plane crash in the Moscow region,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS. “Putin also instructed relevant departments to conduct the necessary search operations.”

The crash is one of the deadliest in recent years in Russian.

A military plane bound for Syria crashed into the Black Sea shortly after taking off from Sochi, Russia, on Christmas Day 2016. All 92 people aboard the flight were killed.