FUNKE ODUWOLE with agency report

The Tupoler-154 was flying from southern Russia to St. Petersburg when it disappeared from radar screens following a distress signal.

Russian news agency said officials had ruled out terrorism, but the cause of the crash was still unclear, with various officials citing turbulence, lightning and a fire on board.

The Interfax news agency reported that 39 of the passengers were children, although Russian and Ukrainian governments officials offered differing figures.

The plane crashed near the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, about 400 miles east of Kiev, officials said. “Unfortunately, we believe that no one managed to survive,” Russian Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Irina Andriyanova said in televised comments.

Andriyanova said there were 171 people aboard: 160 passengers, including six children, and 11 crew members. Tetyana Lytvynova, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s Emergency Situations Ministry, however, said there were 160 passengers and 10 crew members on board. The discrepancy could not immediately be explained.

Lytvynova could not immediately confirm Russian officials’ report of no survivors. A bad thunderstorm was raging in the area at the time of the crash, said a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian Emergency Situations Ministry in Donetsk, who identified herself only as Yelena. She said there was lightning and heavy winds.

Interfax quoted Ukrainian Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Igor Krol as saying a fire broke out on the plane at 32,800 feet and that the crew decided to try to make an emergency landing. Interfax also quoted Russian aviation official Alexander Neradko as saying that the plane might have run into strong turbulence.

Andriyanova said she received information that “the plane most likely was hit by lightning.” “There was no damage on the ground. After it fell, it broke apart and burst into flames,” Andriyanova said in televised comments.

Interfax cited witnesses as saying the plane was intact when it hit the ground. The RIA-Novosti news agency later quoted Andriyanova as saying “terrorism has been ruled out.”

The plane disappeared from radar screens two minutes after the crew sent a distress signal, said Yulia Stadnikova, another Russian spokeswoman.

Pulkovo airlines, among Russia’s largest carriers, is based in St. Petersburg. It was the third major plane crash in the region this year, and came less than two months after at least 124 people died when an Airbus A-310 of the Russian carrier S7 skidded off a runway and burst into flames on July 9 in the Siberian city of Irkutsk.

On May 3, an A-320 of the Armenian airline Armavia crashed into the Black Sea while trying to land in the Russian resort city of Sochi in rough weather, killing all 113 people aboard.