Russian emergency officials mentioned on Monday April 2, a passenger plane bursted into flames and crashed after takeoff in Siberia killing atleast 31 of the 43 people on board.

Thirteen survivors were pulled from the wreckage and rushed to hospital by helicopter but one later died. Television footage showed the plane, which had broken in two, lying in a snowy field. Only the tail and rear part of the fuselage were visible.

It was not immediately clear what caused the UTair airlines ATR 72 to crash with 39 passengers and four crew on board, the latest air disaster to blight Russia's safety record.

"There are no explanations yet," Yuri Alekhin, head of the regional branch of the Emergencies Ministry, told Russian television from the scene of the crash.

He said the "black box" flight recorder had been found and added: "Contact was lost with the plane just over three minutes after take-off."UTair said on its website that the twin-engine, turbo-prop plane had been trying to make an emergency landing when it came down 1.5 km (one mile) from the airport in the western Siberian city of Tyumen en route to Surgut, an oil town to the northeast.

RIA news reporters mentioned that the hospital officials in Tyumen which is 1,720 km east of Moscow.That At least five survivors are in critical condition.