RUSSIA - Aug 24 - Plane Crashes, Another Goes Missing.

At least 89 people are feared dead in air crashes, after reports that two separate passenger aircraft disappeared on evening domestic flights from Moscow to the south of the country. Pres Putin ordered the FSB security services to investigate the incidents and airports across Russia tightened security. Officials would not exclude the possibility of terrorist action, with two accidents happening almost simultaneously. The emergencies ministry said that the two airliners were missing after leaving the capital's Domodyedevo airport, one a Tu-134 bound for the city of Volgograd and the other a Tu-154 on its way to the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Agencies said witnesses reported an explosion shortly before the crash of the aircraft bound for Volgograd. Its wreckage was found near Tula, a city south of Moscow. Separately, Sibir, operator of the Sochi flight, confirmed radar contact had been lost with its aircraft. (A terrorist action, if confirmed, would be the boldest attack yet within Russia, representing a sharp escalation of violence against civilians outside the north Caucasus region in recent years, with the exception of explosions against buildings in Moscow and other cities in 1999). Putin is staying in his official residence on a working holiday near Sochi, where he has been holding high-level meetings with Russian and foreign visitors and is expected to meet his French and German counterparts. Russia is braced for elections in the nearby conflict-torn republic of Chechnya Aug 22 following the assassination last May in a bomb blast of Akhmed Kadyrov, the regional leader voted into office in 2003. The former president and rebel leader in Chechnya Aslan Maskhadov, recently pledged heightened attacks against Russian forces.