Does anyone know the registration number/letters of the Russian Yak-42 that crashed Wednesday about 200 KM north of Moscow?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Yak-Service_Yakovlev_Yak-42_crash

The aircraft, a Yakovlev Yak-42D, construction number 4520421301017, was first flown by Tatarstan Airlines in 1993 and was later sold to charter airline Yak-Service, who was the operator of the plane when it crashed

The Yak-Service aircraft struck a tower mast at Tunoshna Airport as it was taking off

http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/RA-42433.html

http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/RA-42434.html

Either RA-42433 or RA-42434. Wikiepedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakovlev_Yak-42 shows a picture of the accident aircraft that has the former registration, but lists the latter registration in the list of accidents for this type.

Thanks. It looks like there are no A-D submitted photos of this aircraft. My interest in all this is because I knew Ruslan "Rusty" Salei, formerly of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, for which he played for some nine years. I was once a partial season ticket holder with the Mighty Ducks and had an opportunity to meet and converse with Rusty on several occasions. Suffice to say I am saddened about his passing and those of the other victims.

According to Aviation Safety Network, aircraft registration was RA-42434. Following is link for more info: http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20110907-0

This is supposedly the plane someone posted in a forum on airliners.net in a dscussion about this.

http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/middle/1/8/8/1797881.jpg

I was saddened by this also. Several former NHL players were on that plane, 3 of them former Wings. It has been a rough offseason for the NHL with already 3 deaths before this.

Ruslan Salai played for my team Detroit Redwings last season. The coach Brad McCrimmon was our coach last year. Swedish (although I believe he was born in Poland) Goalie Stephan Liv, was a Redwings prospect and I got to meet him before though as far as I know he never played a regular season with the Wings, just some preseason games.

Other former NHLers on that flight Pavol Demitra who played several years for the St. Louis Blues and Vancouver Canucks was a really great player. Karlis Sraskins played for the Colorado Avalanche, Josef Vacicek played for the Carolina Hurricanes.

Survivor but badly burned Alexander Galimov was one of only 2 survivors, he had burns over 80% of his body. I believe he was a part of the New York Rangers 1994 Stanley Cup team.

I also heard that the mother of one of the players Sergei Ostapchuk died of a heart attack when she learned of her son's death.

The Russian Minister of Transportation now wants to take this type of plane out of service and other older Russian planes out of service, which is sad too because I would love to see some of these Russian planes fly if I ever make my way over there.

I read that this particular aircraft was built in 1993, so that is not that old by aviation standards as half the U.S. commercial fleet is older than that. My Redwings are flying in a late 1960s built DC-9-50.

Sad deal...

Here's a new Wiki page about it...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lokomotiv_Yaroslavl_plane_crash

There was some talk for some time yesterday that Salei was already in Minsk where Lokomotiv was going to play. That turned out to be false because he was confirmed also on the plane.

Yes, I had seen that report also. Rusty met and married a Southern California girl during his stint with the Ducks, had three children and still maintained a home here in Orange County. He was planning on playing another two seasons in the Kontinental Hockey League then retiring and living permanently in Orange County, where he was going to become a member of the Ducks Alumni, working for the Ducks in community relations projects, ect. This brings up a question I've had for a long time, given the number of Russian aircraft that crash each year: is it a matter of poorly designed and built aircraft, a matter of bad airport facilities, or a matter of bad piloting that's the cause of these accidents?

Not that I'm trying to bash the Russian aviation industry. Hell, back in 1987 two people I knew died in separate airline crashes, one on a Northwest flight that crashed after takeoff from Detroit Metro and another who was on a Pacific Southwest Airlines flight that crashed off the California coast when a crazy guy broke into the cockpit and shot the pilot and co-pilot. America isn't immune to horrific airline crashes. But it seems they happen in Russia more often.