A couple of weeks ago, a plane flying out of one of Russia’s busiest airports crashed just outside of Moscow, killing all 71 people aboard. The plane disappeared off of radars and radio connection with the crew was lost several minutes after takeoff, but the plane was rediscovered after crashing in Stepanovskoe.

The Saratov Airlines plane was carrying 65 passengers and six crew members. Almost everyone on the plane was from the eastern part of the Orenburg region, according to the regional governor’s office. Orenburg lies on the southern end of the Ural Mountains in Russia. The flight was headed to the city of Orsk in the Orenburg region, so many passengers were going home on the 1,000 mile flight.

“This is a tragedy for all of Orenburg,” Governor Yurg Berg said. “We will not leave anyone alone with the pain of losing loved ones.”

The cause of this crash is yet to have been determined. Authorities spotted the wreckage in a field outside of Moscow. Witness footage from the scene broadcast on Russian television showed orange-painted pieces of the aircraft scattered across the snow. Safety workers had to use heavy-duty equipment to plow through the deep snow and try to reach the crash site.

A website that tracks real-time flight information, flightradar24.com, showed that the plane lost altitude just six minutes after takeoff. It reached 6,400 feet before dropping to 5,800 feet, rising again briefly and falling sharply- all in one minute.

“I walked out of my house and heard a plane hit the ground,” an anonymous witness said. “There was a huge explosion.”

Russia has had a reputation for unsave aviation and frequent plane crashes since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but the industry’s safety record has improved as major Russian airlines have invested in fleets of Western airplanes. The most recent devastating crash occurred in Dec. 2016, when a flight operated by the Ministry of Defense plunged into the Black Sea moments after taking off. The plane was headed to Syria and all 92 people on board died.

A government watchdog agency cited Saratov Airlines for safety concerns in December, but its report focused on the storage of flammable materials on the ground, not on its airplanes. The plane that went down was originally part of the fleet of Rossiya airline, but it was in storage for two years before being leased to Saratov Airlines.

President Vladimir Putin has expressed his condolences while investigators are still trying to discover the cause of the crash. My thoughts go out to all of those who were affected by this crash.