At least 13 people died Sunday after a passenger plane on fire attempted an emergency landing at Moscow's busiest airport as flames and thick black smoke poured from the fuselage, Russian news agencies reported.
"For the moment, we confirm the death of 13 people, two of them children,' said a spokeswoman for the crash investigation team, Svetlana Petrenko, the agency reported.
Two children were among the passengers who died, the Investigative Committee said. At least six people were reported injured.
The Sukhoi SSJ100 operated by national airline Aeroflot had 73 passengers and five crew members on board when it touched down and sped down a runway spewing huge flames and black smoke.
The airport said in a statement that the plane, which had taken off from Sheremetyevo Airport for the northern city of Murmansk, turned back for unspecified technical reasons and made a hard landing that started the fire.
Some news reports cited sources as saying the plane bounced several times during the landing
"Investigators soon will begin interviewing victims, eyewitnesses, airport staff and the airline carrier, as well as other persons responsible for the operation of the aircraft," Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said.
The Sukhoi SSJ100 operated by national airline Aeroflot had 73 passengers and five crew members on board when it touched down and sped down a runway spewing huge flames and black smoke.
The airport said in a statement that the plane, which had taken off from Sheremetyevo Airport for the northern city of Murmansk, turned back for unspecified technical reasons and made a hard landing that started the fire.
Some news reports cited sources as saying the plane bounced several times during the landing
"Investigators soon will begin interviewing victims, eyewitnesses, airport staff and the airline carrier, as well as other persons responsible for the operation of the aircraft," Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said.
Our earlier report:
One passenger has died after the plane was engulfed by fire on Sunday, according to Russia's TASS news agency. All other passengers are believed to have been evacuated safely.Emergency services appear to have extinguished the flames, with smoke still seen in photos circulating on Twitter.
Video footage showed black smoke and flames rising above its tail once it had made an emergency landing in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.
В аэропорту Шереметьево пожар. Горит самолёт. Никого из других самолетов не выпускают. pic.twitter.com/raX0n5VhrO— Norenko Mikhail (@norenko_mikhail) May 5, 2019
At least 10 people were injured when a passenger airliner made a crash landing and caught fire in Moscow on Sunday.
The Russian-made Sukhoi Superjet was carrying 73 passengers and at least five crew members. The passengers were forced to evacuate using emergency slides. Some of them may still be inside the fuselage, according to a source cited by the Interfax news agency
The aircraft was reportedly set to leave Sheremetyevo for the northern city of Murmansk, which is located inside the Artic circle and near the border with Finland. However, an onboard emergency forced the pilots to turn the plane around.
"The plane sent out a distress signal after taking off, started emergency landing procedures, failed to land in the first attempt, and in the second it hit landing gear and its nose on the runway and started burning," an unnamed source told the Interfax news agency.
Investigators were at the scene in Sheremetyevo, Russian officials said.
The TASS news agency cited an unnamed source as saying that a lightning strike might have triggered the onboard emergency.
Sukhoi Superjet 100 made its first commercial flight in 2011. In May 2012, a plane of this type crashed while on a promotional flight in Indonesia with 50 people on board.
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