Dozens die but dozens survive fiery emergency landing at Russian airport
Moscow -- Russia's transportation minister said Monday 41 bodies have been recovered from the burned wreckage of an Aeroflot plane at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport.
Yevgeny Dietrich also told reporters six of the people who survived the disaster Sunday night have been hospitalized in serious condition. He said 33 passengers and four crew members survived in all. There were 78 people on board.
Dietrich also said Moscow doesn't see any reason to ground the Russia sees no reason to ground the domestic-made Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft, the type involved in the landing.
The plane was on fire while making an emergency landing at the airport after turning back for unspecified reasons during a flight to Murmansk.
Russia's Investigative Committee said the flight recorders from the plane have been recovered and investigators were looking into inexperienced pilots, equipment failure and bad weather as possible causes for the disaster.
The plane sped down a runway spewing huge flames and black smoke. Russian news agencies said flames broke out while the flight was airborne. Social media videos show the plane engulfed in flames after it landed. Some news reports cited sources as saying the plane bounced several times during the landing.
Emergency vehicles arrived at the airport to assist passengers moving away from the plane — some holding luggage — and fight the blaze, which was coming out of the airplane's rear section.
"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 SSJ100, also known as the Superjet, is a two-engine regional jet put into service in 2011 with considerable fanfare as a signal that Russia's troubled aerospace industry was on the rise.
This wasn't the first time the Sukhoi Superjet has been involved in a high-profile incident. In 2012, a Sukhoi Superjet crashed in Indonesia during a demonstration flight for potential investors, killing all 45 people aboard. The aircraft is Russia's first new model of passenger jet since the fall of the Soviet Union.
