Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times Four Pulkovo Airlines pilots carrying the coffin of one of the crew members killed in the crash after the ceremony at the House of Culture in Aviagorodok.

Thousands of mourners gathered Thursday to pay their last respects to the 14 crew members who died after an Il-86 passenger plane lurched upward and crashed shortly after taking off from Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow.

Pilots and flight attendants from St. Petersburg-based Pulkovo Airlines stood in an honor guard by the 14 coffins at the Aviation Workers' House of Culture in Aviagorodok, near the Pulkovo airport as tearful relatives huddled nearby. The coffins were covered with flowers and uniform caps as are worn by airline staff.

The Il-86 had just carried 250 passengers from the Black Sea resort of Sochi to Moscow and was returning July 28 to its home airport, Pulkovo-1 in St. Petersburg, with only crew aboard, when it slammed into a wooded area just off the landing strip of Sheremetyevo-1. All of the crew on board were from St. Petersburg or the Leningrad Oblast.

Two flight attendants who were sitting in the back of the plane survived. One, Irina Vinogradova has since been released from hospital, and Itar-Tass reported Thursday that the other, Tatyana Moiseyeva, is expected to be hospitalized for another week. Vinogradova has already returned to St. Petersburg, but Pulkovo spokesperson Yelena Yelagina said that, emotionally, Vinogradova did not feel up to attending the ceremony.

Interfax reported on Thursday that Vinogradova was planning to return to her job at the airline this month, while Moiseyeva has decided not to return to work in the industry.

Officials say the plane started climbing almost vertically 42 seconds after takeoff, causing it to stall and crash. Investigators say the plane's stabilizer shifted to an extreme angle, causing the nose to jerk upward, but they have not yet determined whether this was due to a technical malfunction or pilot error.

Investigators are now studying the plane's twin flight-data recorders and debris from the crash site. Yelagina said it could take several more weeks before they reach their final conclusion.

"For now we have only heard that something went wrong with the stabilizer," Yelagina said. "But it may take a month more to get the investigation's results."

The stabilizer is a small wing on the aircraft's tail that controls the angle of the plane's nose during flight.

During Thursday's ceremony, near Pulkovo Airport, the husband and daughter of one of the crash victims, 39-year-old flight attendant Natalya Fetisova, touched their heads to her coffin.

"It was a highly qualified crew," said one Pulkovo Airlines pilot, who declined to give his name. "I knew all of them."

Since the crash, officials have said they would conduct tests on all Il-86 jumbo jets, one of the main workhorses of Russian airlines. The Il-86 had previously been considered a very reliable plane, without any fatal crashes in the 22 years it has been in use.

Pulkovo Airlines said would it pay $18,000 in compensation to families of those killed in the crash, in accordance with the crew's work contract, Interfax reported. The families are also due to receive 100,000 rubles ($3,150) from an insurance company, Interfax said.

Following the ceremony, the crew members were taken to burials Thursday in various cemeteries in St. Petersburg, Gatchina and in the Pskovskaya Oblast.