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- Aug 17, 2011
MOSCOW—Canadian coach Brad McCrimmon is among the dead in a Russian plane crash that happened Wednesday while the jet was taking off in western Russia, killing 43 people and critically injuring two others.
The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said the Yak-42, part of an aging fleet that was to have been taken out of service next year, crashed immediately after taking off from an airport near the city of Yaroslavl, on the Volga River, 240 kilometres northeast of Moscow.
The jet was carrying the Lokomotiv hockey team from Yaroslavl to Minsk, where it was to play Thursday against Dynamo Minsk in the opening game of the season of the Continental Hockey League (KHL).
The crash killed 37 passengers and several crew members, the ministry said. Citing preliminary information, the ministry said two people survived and were taken to hospital.
Among those who passed away were Pavol Demitra, Josef Vasicek, Karel Rachunek, Ruslan Salei, Alexander Vasyunov, and Karlis Skrastins. Very tragic, I don't watch hockey that much anymore but I knew a lot of these names and I grew up watching a few of them. R.I.P.