Pavol Demitra, Ruslan Salei among 43 dead in Russian plane crash

Former Kings forward Pavol Demitra and former Ducks defenseman Ruslan Salei were among 43 people killed when a plane carrying a Russian hockey league team crashed shortly after takeoff on Wednesday, Russian officials have confirmed.

Only two of the 45 people on board the passenger plane carrying members of the Kontinental Hockey League team Lokomotiv survived after the Yak-42 aircraft slammed into the banks of the Volga River after taking off from an airport in Yaroslav, 150 miles northeast of Moscow. The team was flying to Belarus to play in its season opener against Dinamo Minsk.

Russian player Alexander Galimov and a flight engineer survived and were taken to a hospital with serious injuries, Sergei Vakhrukov, the Yaroslavl region governor, told the television network Russia-24.

“Today we lost our favorite team,” he said.

Photos: Russian jet crash

The weather was sunny and clear at the time, officials said. Russian media said the plane struggled to gain altitude and then crashed into a signal tower, shattering into pieces, the Associated Press reported.

Among the dead was Lokomotiv Coach Brad McCrimmon, 52, a former NHL defenseman. He had recently worked as an assistant coach for the Detroit Red Wings and had signed a contract with Lokomotiv in May.