At least 15 people have been confirmed dead after an aircraft carrying parachutists crashed in central Russia on Sunday, according to the country’s Ministry for Emergency Situations. The twin-engine short-range transport aircraft L-410 crashed around 9:23 a.m. local time (0623 GMT) during a flight over the republic of Tatarstan. There were 23 people on board including 21 parachute divers, according to state news agency TASS.

Seven people had been rescued from the debris, the ministry told TASS. 

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The aircraft was owned by an aero club.

Earlier, emergencies services said that 19 people had been killed in the crash. But TASS quoted a source as saying that the information has not been confirmed as “access to the plane’s half-ruined fuselage is impeded.”

A helicopter is airlifting rescuers to the site of the crash in Menzelinsk.

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“A Mi-8 helicopter of the emergencies ministry with rescuers on board is flying to the site of the plane’s rough landing,” the press service of the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations told TASS.

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An ageing Antonov An-26 transport plane crashed in the Russian far east last month killing six people after disappearing from flight radars 38 km from Khabarovsk, while five people on board a Kamov Ka-27 helicopter were killed after the aircraft made a rough landing near Mount Ostraya in the Kamchatka region.

In July, all 28 people on board an Antonov An-26 twin-engine turboprop died in a crash in the same region.

And earlier this month, three people died as a Robinson helicopter crashed on a highway in the city of Lytkarino in the Moscow region.