A Russian jet carrying hockey players to their first match of the season crashed on takeoff Wednesday, killing 44 people and dealing another blow to the country’s safety record.

A Russian jet carrying hockey players to their first match of the season crashed on takeoff Wednesday, killing 44 people and dealing another blow to the country's safety record.

"According to the latest data, there were 45 people on board -- 37 passengers and eight crew members. Forty-four people died in the crash and one person survived," a police official told the RIA Novosti news agency.

A source told Interfax news agency that the plane suddenly started listing to the left and crashed about 500 meters away from the Tunoshna airport.

The Yak-42 passenger jet took off from Yaroslavl airport about 300 kilometers northeast of Moscow just as a two-day political forum expected to be attended by President Dmitry Medvedev opened its doors.

The local emergencies ministry said the jet was taking members of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team to the Belarus capital Minsk for the their first match of the 2011-2012 season.

The team is trained by a Canadian national and has several foreign players on the roster posted on its website.

Two accidents involving Tu-134 and An-24 jets this summer that killed a total 54 people prompted Medvedev to call for most of the aircraft to be retired by January 1 and the rest taken out in subsequent months.

But that move was followed by a series of smaller air accidents as well as a Volga River boat disaster that killed 122 people who were taking a pleasure cruise.

The accidents have tarnished Medvedev's vision of a modern Russia that he promotes in messages ahead of presidential elections next year that can be also contested by Vladimir Putin -- his more nationalist mentor and prime minister.

Medvedev was due to speak at the forum on Thursday and sent his top political adviser Vladislav Surkov to the scene of the disaster.

A Kremlin spokeswoman said Medvedev himself would arrive in Yaroslavl later Wednesday.

Conference participants also held a minute of silence while the country's hockey season kicked off with a somber message from the deputy head of Gazprom -- the company that sponsors Russia's Continental Hockey League (KHL).