A Russian jet carrying a local ice hockey team has crashed while taking off in western Russia, killing at least 43 people and leaving two critically injured.

It was carrying 45 people, including 37 passengers and eight crew, and the ministry said all but two people were killed in the crash.

The weather was sunny and clear at the time.

The Russian emergency situations ministry said the Yak-42 plane crashed immediately after taking off from an airport near the city of Yaroslavl, on the Volga river about 150 miles north-east of Moscow.

The ministry said the plane was carrying the Lokomotiv ice hockey team from Yaroslavl.

The team was heading to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, where it was to play on Thursday against Dinamo Minsk in the opening game of the season of the Continental Hockey League. The CHL is a league of several ex-Soviet nations.

The Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, immediately sent the transport minister to the site of the crash, 10 miles east of Yaroslavl.

President Dmitry Medvedev has announced plans to take ageing Soviet-built planes out of service starting next year. The short- and medium-range Yak-42 has been in service since 1980 and dozens are still in use with Russian and other airlines.

In June, another Russian passenger jet, a Tu-134, crashed in the north-western city of Petrozavodsk, killing 47 people.