A plane caught fire with 78 people on board during an emergency landing at Moscow-Sheremetyevo airport, in Russia on Sunday 5th May, 2019.
Forty-one people died Sunday, May 5, 2019 in the emergency landing of an aircraft of the Russian company Aeroflot , which was fully engulfed with 78 people on board at Moscow-Sheremetyevo Airport .
“According to the corrected data available to the investigators at present, 37 people have survived ,” the Inquiry said in a statement.
A spokeswoman for the Investigative Committee (the body responsible for major investigations in Russia), Elena Markovskaya, then explicitly confirmed to journalists that the death toll was 41 dead.
Impressive images
The previous record was 13 dead while the impressive images of the Sukhoi Superjet 100 in flames left fears a much heavier balance sheet.
“Currently, six wounded are hospitalized. Two seriously wounded are in intensive care, “Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova told journalists on the spot, adding that 14 people needed medical help.
The plane had been forced for a reason still unknown to return to Moscow-Sheremetyevo, a few minutes after taking off for Murmansk (north).
Ад в Шереметьево: Sukhoi Superjet 100, вылетевший из Москвы в Мурманск, вернулся из-за пожара на борту. Горит как факел, а в это время из передних дверей полным ходом идет эвакуация pic.twitter.com/oRWI6npPCu
— Дмитрий Смирнов (@dimsmirnov175) May 5, 2019
The first sources reported a fire on board but a video published hours after the crash shows the aircraft touching the tarmac, then bouncing before igniting.
Immediately after the landing, the passengers were evacuated by the slides before the plane as it was blazing at high speed, huge volutes of black smoke rising in the air.
Other amateur videos showed passengers running on the tarmac to get away from the aircraft. Another, shot from inside the cabin, shows a burning engine as panic cries rise into the aircraft.
“Flight Su-1492 took off as scheduled at 18:02. After take-off, the crew reported an anomaly and made the decision to return to the airport of departure, “the airport said in a statement.
“At 6.30pm0, the aircraft made an emergency landing, after which the fire broke out,” the statement said.
“The aircraft issued a distress signal after take-off. He tried an emergency landing, did not succeed the first time and, on the second attempt, the landing gear hit (the ground), then the nose, and he ignited “, advanced little after the accident the Interfax news agency, citing an anonymous source.
Посадка пылающего Sukhoi Superjet 100 в Шереметьево. Пилоты – стальные люди pic.twitter.com/ETlzOHbUKw
— Дмитрий Смирнов (@dimsmirnov175) May 5, 2019
Solid tanks
The tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda published the testimony of a passenger on the plane, Petr Egorov: “We had just taken off and the aircraft was hit by lightning (…) The landing was hard, we almost lost consciousness of fear. The plane bounced off the tarmac like a grasshopper and caught fire on the ground.
Interfax quoted an unnamed source as saying that the aircraft had landed with its tanks filled with fuel because the radio contact with the air traffic controllers was lost, “it was dangerous to perform a maneuver to empty the tanks. above Moscow “.
“A criminal investigation for violation of the security rules” was opened, said in a statement the Investigation Committee.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Vladimir Putin had expressed his condolences to the relatives of the victims.
Several flights were diverted to other airports in Moscow or Nizhny Novgorod, about 500 kilometers east of the Russian capital.
“A commission is working. Any conclusion is premature, “said a spokesman for the Russian agency Rossaviatsia about a possible immobilization of the Superjet after the crash.
The Sukhoi Superjet 100, the first civilian aircraft designed by post-Soviet Russia to compete with Brazil’s Embraer and Canada’s Bombardier in the regional jet market, was a source of pride for the country at the time of its launch in 2011. It is however very decried and hardly to convince outside the Russian market.
Several foreign companies that exploited it have preferred to reduce or stop its use, citing problems of reliability.
Its launch was tarnished by a plane crash in May 2012 during a demonstration flight to Indonesia, which killed 45 people.
To support the aircraft manufacturer, the Russian government has introduced subsidies to encourage Russian operators buying Superjet Aeroflot became the first user of the device and announced in September 2018 having spent a record order for 100 Superjet .
The last major crash in Russia dates back to February 2018: an An-148 from Saratov Airlines crashed near Moscow shortly after takeoff, leaving 71 dead.
