Moscow, Dec. 6 - A huge military cargo plane with two fighter
 jets on board crashed and barreled down the main street of a Siber-
 ian town today, killing at least 29 people and injuring dozens more.
     The An-124 plunged to the ground 20 seconds after takeoff from
 Irkutsk, damaging four apartment buildings, an orphanage and a
 school, witnesses said. Scores of terrified children were evacuated.
     Russian television said military prosecutors launched a criminal
 investigation into why one of the world's largest aircraft - an An-
 tonov-124 with a wingspan wider than a jumbo jet's - crashed after
 take-off from an airfield near Irkutsk en route to Vladivostok,
 further east.
     "I thought somebody was shooting ... I only saw the plane moving
 quietly to the ground, one wing lower than the other," a woman who
 saw the crash told the Independent Television channel.
     "Everything is in turmoil and things are still not clear,"
 Irkutsk journalist Valery Pochekunin said several hours after the
 crash. "I can see tens of bodies."
     Russian television stations showed pictures of the smashed air-
 craft's giant tail - emblazoned with the red star of the former
 Soviet Union - leaning against a four-story apartment building. Sur-
 rounding buildings were gutted by flames and still smoldering in
 Irkutsk, 2,600 miles east of Moscow.
                       No. of Passengers Unknown
     There was confusion about the number of people aboard the 220-
 foot jet, roughly the size of a newer Boeing 747.
     The Defense Ministry said the plane was carrying 46 people, but
 the Ministry of Emergency Situations, which was heading rescue ef-
 forts, put the number at 23. There was no explanation for the con-
 tradiction.
     Emergency officials said 29 bodies had been found. The death
 toll was expected to rise as some 700 firefighters, soldiers and
 medical personnel with heavy machinery and dogs searched for sur-
 vivors in the debris and in surrounding buildings.
                         Possible Engine Failure
     ITAR-Tass quoted unidentified investigators as saying both left
 engines had failed at an altitude of 210 feet.
     The An-124 aircraft, one of the world's largest planes, crashed
 about 20 seconds after taking off at 9:44 a.m. from Irkutsk, about
 2,600 miles east of Moscow, Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Col.
 Nikolai Baranov said.
     The flaming wreckage leveled one four-story building with 200
 residents and set at least five apartment buildings on fire.
     The plane also damaged an orphanage, two wooden houses and a
 school, it said.
     Hundreds of children were evacuated from the area and 13 were
 hospitalized, according to the Interfax news agency. Twelve people
 were taken to the burn center in the nearby city of Irkutsk, the
 news agency said.
                          Fires Out, Rescue Begins
     Rescue workers, braving temperatures of around -4 Fahrenheit,
 spent about four hours tackling a fierce blaze at the scene of the
 crash, an official in the Irkutsk regional government said.
     It has been extinguished, and officials were searching through
 wreckage for survivors.
     An air traffic control official said the Antonov-124, which has
 the biggest wingspan of any plane in the world - a third larger than
 a jumbo jet - had been carrying two Sukhoi-27 fighter planes.
     He said the cargo plane, which can carry 120 tons, had taken off
 from the airstrip of a military production plant at 9.44 a.m. Moscow
 time (1:44 a.m. EST) .
     Interfax said the Antonov-124 had been traveling to Russia's Far
 Eastern port of Vladivostok, from where the fighters were to have
 been exported to Vietnam.
                           Jet Sales Common
     Post-communist Russia, strapped for cash, has launched an aggres-
 sive arms sales program, and its Sukhoi fighter planes are among its
 best-selling products. One Sukhoi jet is estimated to cost around
 $100 million.
     A Kremlin spokesman said President Boris Yeltsin was deeply
 shocked by news of the crash and had instructed Prime Minister Viktor
 Chernomyrdin to fly to Irkutsk to assist the work of a special com-
 mission set up to investigate the disaster.
     General Pyotr Deinekin, head of the Russian air force to which
 the plane belonged, had already flown to the scene.
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