Russian Defense Ministry plane with 75 aboard crashes in Georgia

TBILISI, Georgia - A Russian Defense Ministry plane with at least 75 passengers and crew slammed into a mountain while trying to land in bad weather Wednesday evening in Georgia. Officials said everyone on board was feared dead.

A search and rescue team sent to the crash site about 15 miles east of the city of Batumi found pieces of the plane and scorched earth, Georgia's Emergency Situations Department said. Russia's RTR television reported that bodies had been found, and showed footage of flaming pieces of wreckage lit by rescue workers' floodlights.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known.

The plane veered off course on approach in ''difficult weather conditions,'' said Alexander Silagadze, head of the civil aviation agency Sakaeronavigatsiya.

It was unclear exactly how many people were on board. Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry said the plane carried 82 people - 11 crew members and 71 passengers - but Russian military officials said there were 11 crew members and 64 passengers, the Interfax news agency reported.

Russian military officials said the plane, an Il-18 transport, was at an altitude of 5,300 feet near Mount Tirava when communications with it were lost, Interfax reported. Both military and civilian personnel were aboard, the agency said.

Mount Tirava means ''Weeping Mountain'' in Georgian, RTR said.

Interfax said passengers aboard the plane included servicemen and their wives and children returning from vacation. Although Russia and Georgia became independent countries when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, Russian still maintains troops in Georgia.

A spokesman for the Georgian emergency department said on condition of anonymity that it was unlikely anyone survived.

The plane was flying from the Chkalovsky military airfield outside of Moscow to Batumi, home to a Russian military base. It was a mail plane that made twice-monthly flights along the route, military officials said.

The Russian emergencies ministry was sending a plane carrying a search and rescue team, and an investigation committee had been formed.

Russia is in the process of removing its troops and equipment from two bases in Georgia and is negotiating withdrawal from two more. Equipment from the bases is being shipped through Batumi.

The Il-18 is a Russian-made, four-engine turboprop. In 1997, an Il-18 owned by a private Russian carrier crashed on a charter flight while trying to take off in Johannesburg, South Africa. All five people survived, and the reason for the crash was not determined.

The Il-18 model, which can seat up to 100, first flew in 1957, and production ceased in 1970. The plane was used as a submarine hunter and airborne command post by the Russian military and as a passenger plane by the Soviet national airline Aeroflot.