MOSCOW , Russia -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- A passenger jet caught fire early Sunday , exploded and crashed into railway tracks in the central Russian city of Perm , killing all 88 people on board . Wreckage from the Aeroflot-Nord Boeing 737 , which crashed near Perm , lies across a railway track . The exact cause of the pre-dawn crash is under investigation , but government spokesman Vladimir Markin said `` a technical breakdown '' was a likely cause . Markin said in televised remarks that the failure of one of the Boeing 737-500 's two engines may have caused the plane to come down , The Associated Press reported . Airline officials have said there is no indication of terrorism . `` We think it 's very doubtful that it was the result of a terrorist attack , because at the scene , there were no traces of explosives as we know for now , '' said Lev Koshlyakov , Deputy Director General of Aeroflot . It took firefighters more than two hours to extinguish the blazing wreckage . When the sun rose , pieces of the Aeroflot jet were strewn about the railroad tracks . `` It slammed in front of my house , and there was a huge flame , '' an unidentified woman in Perm told Russian state television . `` It looked like fireworks . '' She said the impact of the crash `` threw me across my sheets ... . Then my daughter ran in from the next room and asked if a war had started . '' She and other witnesses said they saw the aircraft burning before it came crashing down . `` It looked like a comet , '' she said . The jet was en route to Perm from Moscow when the pilots lost communication with air traffic control just before landing about 3:10 a.m. -LRB- 2110 GMT -RRB- , an Aeroflot official said . He described the weather at the time as `` mediocre . '' The public safety minister for the Perm region said investigators were combing a 2.5-mile -LRB- 4-kilometer -RRB- area , including homes and railways . Watch more about the crash '' `` Right now , it 's apparent that there was a fire on the plane at one kilometer in the air , '' Yuri Orlov said . `` After that , all contact was cut off -- the plane exploded . '' The flight data recorder has been recovered and will be analyzed by the International Aviation Commission , Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin said . The plane carried 82 passengers , including seven children , and a crew of six . At least 21 non-Russians were on board , including passport-holders from Azerbaijan , Germany , France , Italy , Switzerland and Ukraine , said Lev Koshlyakov , Aeroflot 's deputy director general . The U.S. Embassy confirmed that no Americans were on board the flight , even though one passenger was listed as a U.S. citizen . It is the second crash in the region involving a Boeing 737 in less than a month . An Iran-bound Boeing 737 with 90 people on board crashed on August 24 just outside the airport in Kyrgyzstan 's capital , Bishkek , killing 68 . The 737 is a workhorse of the airline industry , with thousands of planes in service . Aeroflot said the one that crashed in Perm was manufactured in 1992 and was operated by its Aeroflot-Nord subsidiary . `` This Boeing 737 has all the necessary certificates , '' Koshlyakov said . `` We conduct audits and inspections of all the affiliate companies we work with in the realm of their effectiveness , safety and reliability of the airplanes . '' Airline safety in Russia and the former Soviet Union is among the worst in the world . Aviation experts say poor maintenance , inadequate pilot training and weak government controls are major factors . But Aeroflot is considered one of the safer airlines in the region . Sunday 's crash is the first fatal accident for the airline since 1994 , when a Russian pilot handed control of an Airbus to his 15-year-old son . It crashed , killing all 75 people on board . Russia 's government has now ordered an inquiry into the latest incident , to find out how another routine flight could have ended in tragedy . The National Transportation Safety Board will send a team of investigators to Perm to look into the incident -- a standard practice when a U.S.-made aircraft crashes . CNN 's Kathleen Koch and Michael Sefanov contributed to this report