ISTANBUL

At least 15 people are believed to be killed as a Russian military transport aircraft crashed in the country’s Ivanovo region during takeoff, officials said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that the Il-76 Ilyushin military transport plane crashed while taking off at about 1 p.m. Moscow time (1000GMT) while carrying eight crew members and seven passengers.

The ministry further said that the crash was caused due to a fire that broke out in one of the plane’s engines.

Operational services told Russian state news agency TASS that search efforts at the crash site near the village of Bogorodskoye are underway and that everyone on board died based on preliminary information.