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The Hawker's crew reportedly made an initial attempt to land, canceled the approach and, on making a second approach, disappeared from airport radar.

The plane's pilot, Aleksander Samoilov, had more than 28 years' of flight experience with more than 11,900 hours of flight time logged, of which 1,450 had been at night, the Belapan news agency reported.

Samoilov had been piloting BAe-125 corporate jets since 2007 and had undergone crossover training at a British Aerospace flight schools in England and the United Arab Emirates.

The twin-engine aircraft went down in a forest and tore a path about 250 metres long through trees until coming to a stop in flames about 4 kilometres from the airport, according to eyewitnesses.

Visibility had been excellent at the time of the apparent accident, news reports said.

The plane had taken off Monday evening from Moscow for Minsk. The passengers had planned to visit a upmarket casino recently opened in the Belarusian capital by Russian entrepeneuers, Melnik said.

The casino's operator, a Belarus-registered firm identified in news reports as the Shangri La company, chartered the plane.

The air charter company S-Air is registered in the central Russian city of Kaluga, with its headquarters at Moscow's Vnukovo airport.

Accident occured Oct 26/09

Click Here Aviation-Safety report.

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airliners.net photos of RA-02807 Hawker 800B