Russia's Emergencies Ministry said on Saturday that a missing An-2 aircraft with four people on board had been forced to make an emergency landing and had not crashed.

"The plane made an emergency landing after a fault occurred," a spokesman said, but gave no details of the cause of the problem. The An-2 light cargo aircraft went missing Friday in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, East Siberia, during an aerial photography flight.

An Mi-8 helicopter involved in the search and rescue operation located the missing aircraft on Saturday together with the two crewmembers and two camera operators.

He dismissed reports the plane had crashed and said, "There are no casualties."