A passenger plane has crashed shortly after taking off from an airport in Moscow.

The aircraft, which was carrying 71 people including six members of flight crew, disappeared from radar just minutes after leaving Domodedovo Airport on Sunday.

All those on board are believed to have died.

Reports said the plane was an An-148, a regional jet belonging to Saratov Airlines, which had been travelling to the city of Orsk, near to the Kazakhstan border.

Hours later pictures emerged of the plane's wreckage in a snowy field.

Flightradar24 tweeted that the aircraft departed at 11.22am local time and began descending just five minutes later, losing signal around 20 miles south-east of the airport.

Officials have not yet offered any suggestions as to why the plane crashed.

Russia's Emergencies Ministry confirmed that fragments of the aircraft have been found.

Shabby equipment and poor supervision have plagued Russian civil aviation for years, but its safety record has improved markedly in recent years.

The last large-scale crash in Russia occurred on in December 2016, when a Tu-154 operated by the Russian Defence Ministry on its way to Syria crashed into the Black Sea minutes after takeoff from Sochi.

All 92 people on board were killed.