The plane crash that wiped out a top Russian hockey team was caused by a pilot error, and the co-pilot was taking a banned drug, investigators said Wednesday.
The Yak-42 aircraft was in "good order" before it crashed Sept. 7 shortly after takeoff from the Russian city of Yaroslavl, Russia's Itar-Tass news agency quoted chief investigator Alexei Morozov as saying.
But one of the pilots accidentally applied the brakes during takeoff and lifted the aircraft too steeply, the investigation found. The plane barely rose before it crashed into the Volga River a few hundred yards from the airport in Yaroslavl, which is 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of Moscow.
Among the 44 fatalities was the entire Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team, which was traveling to the Belarusian capital of Minsk for its Kontinental Hockey League season opener. One crew member survived.
"We found out that the Yak-42 airplane was in good order, and no failures in the operation of the airplane and the engines were found. Neither fires nor explosions broke out before the crash," according to Morozov, who led the investigation by the Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK).
The flight was on time, the weather was good and there was no problem with fuel, Morozov said.
A banned drug, phenobarbital, was found in the blood of the co-pilot, the investigator said.
"Phenobarbital has a strong inhibitory influence on the central nervous system. After taking the medicine, people cannot be permitted to make flights," Morozov said.
He added, "According to the medical documentation produced for the second pilot, with the reference to a neurologist supervising him, the second pilot had weaker reflexes in the legs since 2000 and weaker reflexes in the hands since 2005."
After the crash, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev ordered the government to ground all airlines that failed to meet safety standards, amid deep public anger.
