On September 7, 2011, the Lokomotiv club was to travel to Minsk for their first game of the 2011–12 KHL season when the airplane they were in crashed in a botched take-off from Tunoshna Airport.
Yuri Lukin is the general manager of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, a Russian professional ice hockey team playing in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL).
Yaroslavl | FC Lokomotiv Moscow | Principality of Yaroslavl | Lokomotiv Yaroslavl | Yaroslavl Oblast | Lokomotiv | St. John the Baptist Church, Yaroslavl | Rybinsky District, Yaroslavl Oblast | PFC Lokomotiv Plovdiv | PFC Lokomotiv Mezdra | Lokomotiv Stadium (Moscow) | Lokomotiv Stadium | Greshnevo, Yaroslavl Oblast | Danilovsky District, Yaroslavl Oblast |
However, following a plane crash that claimed the lives of the entire Lokomotiv Yaroslavl squad, Lokomotiv withdrew from the season, leaving only 23 teams as in the previous season.
•
On 7 September 2011, the day of the season opening, a tragic airplane accident occurred in Yaroslavl in which the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team was killed.
Salei died on September 7, 2011, when a Yakovlev Yak-42 passenger aircraft, carrying the entire Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team of the Kontinental Hockey League except for player Maxim Zyuzyakin and goaltending coach Jorma Valtonen, crashed near Yaroslavl on its way to Minsk, Belarus, to start the 2011–12 KHL season.
Also, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl's squad for the 2012–13 KHL season would automatically be qualified for the KHL playoffs that season, and the club could request allowance to use more than six non-Russian players in the KHL squad.
It was announced by KHL president Alexander Medvedev that a disaster draft would be conducted to assemble a new team for Lokomotiv Yaroslavl.