A light utility aircraft loaded with contraband cigarettes believed to be flying low to avoid radar detection struck power lines and crashed in northwest Ukraine, killing at least two people aboard, the UK Mirror website reported.

However the Russian news agency Tass said the plane suffered technical difficulties shortly after takeoff in Belarus before crashing near the city of Lutsk. The aircraft was an Antonov An-2 biplane and may have been en route to Poland, according to accounts. Police in the Lviv region of western Ukraine earlier detained a group of smugglers involved in smuggling cigarettes into Poland with a hang-glider, the accounts said.