CNN) -- Two passenger planes have crashed in Russia Tuesday night, Russian officials and a news organization said.
A passenger jet carrying 34 passengers and eight crew members in the Tula region crashed about 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Moscow, the ministry reported.
A second plane went down about 160 kilometers (100 miles) from Rostov-on-Don, in southern Russia, government-run news agency Ria Novosti reported.
A ministry spokeswoman said she could only confirm that the second plane had been lost to radar.
The first plane disappeared from radar at 10:56 p.m. (2:56 p.m. ET), a ministry spokeswoman said.
The Tupolev-134 had taken off from Moscow's Domodedovo Airport and was en route to Volgograd, in southern Russia.
The second plane, a Tupolev-154, disappeared at 11 p.m. (3 p.m. ET) after having taken off from the same airport en route to Sochi in southern Russia, Ria Novosti reported.
There was no immediate word how many people were aboard the second plane.
The Tupolev-154 is a standard medium-range airliner on domestic flights in Russia, according to aviation websites.
CNN
(They crashed 4 minutes apart!!!)
Chechen Muslims ... has to be. With bombs.
Both planes were Tupolev Tu-154 jets, the standard medium-range airliner on domestic flights in Russia, other former Soviet states, Iran and parts of eastern Europe, according to the Web site Airliners.net.
In Washington, a senior U.S. State Department official said, “We are obviously concerned by the news. We’re following developments closely and trying to determine the facts.”
What a coincidence. < /sarcasm >