Aircraft Went Down Last June With At Least 12 People Reportedly On Board

The wreckage of an Antonov An-2 that went down last June with at least 12 people reportedly on board was discovered Saturday by two hunters in the Ural mountains. The debris was found about five miles from the town of Serov.

The hunters discovered not only the wreckage of the airplane, but human remains as well. The regional interior ministry said in a statement that the two hunters originally though what they saw in the swamp was a collapsed power line pylon, but "when they approached it they understood that it was, in fact, the missing plane." There were skeletal remains of 11 people found with the wreckage.

The An-2 reportedly disappeared from radar on June 11th, 2012, while on an unsanctioned flight, according to a report from the Russian news service RT Novosti. It went down shortly after takeoff from the airport in Serov. Crews searched over 386 square miles before ending the effort in November. The large biplane had been assigned to fire monitoring duty, but media reports at the time suggested that the pilot had been organizing excursion flights for civilians to earn extra money.

The An-2 was produced in Russia from 1946 to 2002, according to RT Novosti. It is primarily used as an agricultural aircraft but can carry up to 12 passengers and a crew of two.

(Upper image captured from YouTube video. Lower image from file, not accident airplane.)

FMI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-2