Russia grounds entire MiG-31 fleet after mystery crash
Russia has grounded its entire fleet of MiG-31 fighter jets after one of the Soviet-era planes crashed in unexplained circumstances on Tuesday morning, killing both pilots.
By Andrew Osborn, Moscow
4:07PM BST 06 Sep 2011
By coincidence, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was due to attend a political forum in nearby Yaroslavl on Thursday so top Kremlin officials were already in the area which is around 150 miles northeast of Moscow. Accident investigators said they were looking into all scenarios but that it was not immediately clear whether the crash was the result of pilot error or technical failure. Although Russia has used some of its windfall oil revenues to buy new Western planes in recent years, hundreds of ageing Soviet-era planes remain in service....the plane involved in Wednesday’s crash had only been flying since 1993.