A psychic who died in a plane crash apparently predicted his own death - having misread the signs from his crystal ball, after believing spirits were telling him to cancel his birthday party rather than avoid boarding a plane.
33-year-old Ilya Stavsky thought that if he had a party then he and his friends might be arrested, something that was prompted by him reportedly seeing a number of police officers in a field.
However, it turns out that impending sense of doom did not stem from an arrest but a fatal flight, which would throw its passengers down into the Russian countryside.
Ilya was on his way home to Orsk in south-central Russia's Orenburg Oblast region, having spent time in Moscow visiting his girlfriend Natalia, who he'd met during a trip to India.
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He apparently wanted to marry Natalia, even though another psychic had told him that they weren't destined to be together.
Natalia claims that her boyfriend had been looking into his magic ball before the flight, but failed to spot the specific warning signs. He'd even considered changing the date of the flight, but decided to stick to his plans as he needed to get back for his job, working as an engineer.
Natalia said: "We were talking when he got into the plane. There were three seats, and he got one in the middle."
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She also said that one of the last things Ilya said to her was that the flight was full, and that his legs were hitting the seat in front.
The AN-148 plane crash killed all 71 people on board - including 65 passengers and six crew - after it fell to the ground on Sunday 11 February. Of the passengers, three children aged five, 13 and 17 were killed, RIA reported.
The crew of the Saratov Airlines flight didn't report any problems before the plane plummeted to snowy terrain, state-run media said.
But the plane disappeared from radar shortly after taking off from Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, and came down in Ramenskoye District in the Moscow region.
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The cause of the crash remains uncertain, and the Investigative Committee of Russia said officials have launched a criminal investigation, as all possible scenarios are being explored.
"The scatter of fragments of the aircraft and bodies of dead passengers occupies a large territory; the radius is not less than 1 kilometer (0.6 miles)," said Svetlana Petrenko, spokeswoman the Investigative Committee of Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his 'deep condolences to all those who lost relatives and friends in this disaster' via spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
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