MOSCOW (Reuters) - Forty-one people on board a Russian Aeroflot passenger plane were killed on Sunday, including two children, after the aircraft caught fire as it made a bumpy emergency landing at a Moscow airport, Russian investigators said. Television footage showed the Sukhoi Superjet 100 crash bouncing along the tarmac at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport before the rear part of the plane suddenly burst into flames.

Many passengers on board SU 1492 then escaped via the plane's emergency slides that inflated after the hard landing. The plane, which had been flying from Moscow to the northern Russian city of Murmansk, had been carrying 73 passengers and five crew members, Russia's aviation watchdog said.

Svetlana Petrenko, a spokeswoman for Russia's Investigative Committee, said in a statement that only 37 out of 78 people on board had survived, meaning 41 people had lost their lives.No official cause has been given for the disaster.

The Investigative Committee said it had opened an investigation and was looking into whether the pilots had breached air safety rules. Some passengers blamed bad weather and lightning. "We took off and then lightning struck the plane," the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily cited one surviving passenger, Pyotr Egorov, as saying.

"The plane turned back and there was a hard landing. We were so scared, we almost lost consciousness. The plane jumped down the landing strip like a grasshopper and then caught fire on the ground." State TV broadcast mobile phone footage shot by another passenger in which people could be heard screaming.

President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev expressed their condolences and ordered investigators to establish what had happened. The Interfax news agency cited an unnamed "informed source" as saying the evacuation of the plane had been delayed by some passengers insisting on collecting their hand luggage first. Russian news agencies reported that injured passengers were being treated in hospitals.

DEBRIS IN THE ENGINES

The Flightradar24 tracking service showed that the plane had circled twice over Moscow before making an emergency landing after just under 30 minutes in the air. The plane's under-carriage gave way on impact and its engines caught fire.

Interfax cited a source as saying the plane had only succeeded making an emergency landing on the second attempt and that some of the aircraft's systems had then failed. The emergency landing was so hard that debris had found its way into the engines, sparking a fire that swiftly engulfed the rear of the fuselage, the same source said.

Russian investigators said they were looking into various versions.Russian news agencies reported that the plane had been produced in 2017 and had been serviced as recently as April this year. Aeroflot has long shaken off its troubled post-Soviet safety record and now has one of the world's most modern fleets on international routes where it relies on Boeing and Airbus aircraft.

Russian officials are keen for Aeroflot to buy more Sukhoi Superjets, a regional airliner, for domestic flights to support the country's fledgling civil aircraft industry. The plane is built in Russia's Far East. A Sukhoi Superjet crashed in Indonesia in 2012, killing all 45 people on board in an accident blamed on human error.

The Superjet entered service in 2011 and was the first new passenger jet developed in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. It has been hit, however, by sporadic concerns over safety and reliability, including a December 2016 grounding after a defect was discovered in an aircraft's tail section.

Russian officials said on Sunday it was premature to talk of grounding the Sukhoi Superjet for now. The plane is predominantly used by Russian airlines like Aeroflot, but is also used by a few other foreign operators, including a low-cost Mexican airline.

Dozens of flights at Sheremetyevo were delayed because of the disaster

 `````````````````` </s> Forty-one people on board a Russian Aeroflot passenger plane, including at least one child, were killed after the aircraft caught fire during a bumpy emergency landing at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport Sunday. Russia’s Investigative Committee said it had opened a criminal case and was looking into whether the pilots had violated air safety rules.

Television footage showed the Sukhoi Superjet 100 crash bouncing along the tarmac before the rear part of the plane burst into flames. Many passengers onboard SU 1492 then escaped via the plane's emergency slides that inflated after the hard landing. — The plane, flying from Moscow to the northern Russian city of Murmansk, had been carrying 73 passengers and five crew members, Russia’s national aviation watchdog said. — The pilots requested to turn back shortly after taking off at 6:03 p.m. Moscow time. Radio traffic reportedly died after unconfirmed reports that the plane was hit by lightning. The Flightradar24 tracking service showed the plane had circled twice over Moscow before landing after just under 30 minutes in the air.

— Only 37 out of 78 people on board had survived, Russia's Investigative Committee said in a statement, meaning 41 people had lost their lives. Aeroflot said the Superjet’s engines caught fire after landing. — Some passengers delayed the evacuation process by attempting to remove their carry-on luggage from the overhead compartments, preventing passengers near the tail end from escaping, a source with knowledge told Interfax. — No official cause has been given for the disaster. Investigators say they are considering several leads, including insufficient qualifications of the pilots, air traffic controllers or aircraft inspectors; technical malfunctions; and poor weather conditions. — Authorities are considering equipment failure from a lightning strike as the primary cause of the disaster, an unnamed source with knowledge of the incident told Interfax on Monday. Emergency officials had issued a storm warning in parts of Moscow for Sunday afternoon and evening. — Aviation experts have begun analyzing one of three flight data recorders, Transport Minister Yevgeny Ditrikh told reporters on Monday.

— More than 40 flights have been rerouted to neighboring airports as of Monday morning, most of them to Moscow’s Domodedovo airport, Interfax reported. — Sheremetyevo continues to operate on a single runway 18 hours after the disaster. — The airport’s online table shows several delays and cancellations for both domestic and international arrivals. Only one departing flight has been canceled.

— Valery Postnikov, director of the Society for Independent Accident Investigations: "There are not enough of them [Sukhoi Superjet aircrafts] to talk about their reputation. If I am not mistaken, there are a little more than 100 of them in use now. Until yesterday, there was only one disaster in Indonesia [in 2012]. No one has determined exactly why yesterday's crash happened yet. I wouldn’t rule out the pilot's error as a cause. The problem was definitely not related to the aircraft itself. The problem is [likely] related to the organization of after-sale service, air traffic communication, whether there was a prediction and whether there was danger from a thunderstorm. I think this catastrophe may affect Aeroflot, but not the Sukhoi Superjet, at least for now."

"The plane is good, pilots praise this plane. There are failures we cannot predict. In this case, it has nothing to do with the aircraft itself. [The Sukhoi Superjet] has problems, just like all young aircrafts do. But the problem is with the organization around these aircrafts, and something must be done about it. Any crash is bad both for the company and for the aircraft. But what can we do? We will continue to fly and live."

"Aeroflot is recognized as a top company and the Sukhoi Superjet is recognized as a terrific airplane. The plane itself is certified by many organizations; it has a very good reputation. This is [the Sukhoi Superjet]’s first accident during commercial use. It is an extraordinary tragedy. It could take weeks before we understand what happened. The pilots did a terrific job. The passengers' videos taken inside the plane could have slowed down the evacuation process and many passengers could have lost their lives because of that – but we do not know. I think there will be an impact [on the company] but international travelers will continue to use Aeroflot, it is a very good airline."

— Sunday’s disaster is the first major deadly incident for Aeroflot since 2008, when 88 passengers and crew were killed after its Boeing 737 caught fire and crashed in Perm. — The Superjet entered service in 2011 and was the first new passenger jet developed in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. It has been hit, however, by sporadic concerns over safety and reliability, including a December 2016 grounding after a defect was discovered in an aircraft's tail section. Another Superjet 100 was decommissioned after it rolled off the runway in Russia's Far East republic of Sakha in October 2018. — During a demonstration flight to woo potential buyers in Indonesia on May 9, 2012, an experienced Russian pilot lowered altitude and hit the side of a mountain. Information recovered from the Sukhoi Superjet 100's cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder indicated that the pilot in command was chatting with a potential buyer in the cockpit just before the plane slammed into Mount Salak. — The burned-down aircraft itself previously suffered a malfunction when its flaps failed to open on landing in January 2018, an unnamed aviation industry source told the Kommersant business daily. — Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry does not plan to ground its Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft after Sunday’s crash landing, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited the ministry as saying. Transport Minister Yevgeny Ditrikh later told reporters Russia sees no reason to ground its domestic-made aircraft. </s> Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Passengers used emergency exit slides to escape

Forty-one people died after a Russian plane made an emergency landing and burst into flames just after takeoff from Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.

Dramatic video shows passengers using emergency exit slides to escape the burning Aeroflot aircraft.

Survivors suggest the plane was struck by lightning, but Russia's national carrier said only that it returned to the airport for technical reasons.

Two children are among the dead. The jet had 73 passengers and five crew.

Initial reports suggested the plane had landed on fire, but sources quoted by Russian news agency Interfax said the jet caught fire after a very bumpy landing.

The aircraft landed with full fuel tanks because the crew lost contact with air traffic controllers and decided it was too dangerous to dump fuel over Moscow, Interfax added.

"There are 37 survivors - 33 passengers and four members of the crew," said Yelena Markovskaya, an official involved in the investigation of the crash.

A flight attendant was also reportedly killed in the incident. Five people are in hospital. One witness said it was a "miracle" anyone escaped.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Black smoke billows from the burning plane on the tarmac at Sheremetyevo airport

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The plane had just taken off from Sheremetyevo airport when it caught fire

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has ordered a special committee to investigate the disaster.

What happened to the plane?

The aircraft, a Sukhoi Superjet-100, left the airport at 18:02 local time (15:02 GMT), bound for Murmansk.

Its crew sent a distress signal when "malfunctions" occurred in bad weather shortly after take-off.

After making an emergency landing at the airport, the plane's engines caught fire on the runway, Aeroflot said, adding that the crew "did everything to save the passengers".

Image copyright Reuters Image caption The rear of the Aeroflot plane was completely burnt out

One passenger who survived the crash, Petr Egorov, was quoted by the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily newspaper as saying that the flight "had just taken off and the aircraft was hit by lightning", adding: "The landing was rough - I almost passed out from fear."

Image caption The jet returned to the airport within 30 minutes of departing

Aeroflot published a list of survivors (in Russian) who have been identified so far.

Murmansk's Acting Governor Andrey Chibis has reportedly said that the families of those killed in the fire will each receive one million rubles ($15,300; £11,630), while the victims being treated in hospital will be given 500,000 rubles ($7,650; £5,815).

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Ambulances wait in front of the terminal building at Sheremetyevo airport

How did the survivors escape?

Mikhail Savchenko claims he was on the plane when it exploded into a fireball on the tarmac but "managed to jump out".

He shared a video of passengers running away from the burning plane, posting: "'Guys I am all right, I am alive and in one piece."

Passengers on board a separate plane awaiting takeoff at the airport posted footage on social media showing fire crews attending the plane on the tarmac.

One of the surviving passengers, Dmitry Khlebushkin, said that he was very grateful to the flight attendants. "Only thanks to the flight attendants, I survived," he told reporters.

Kristian Kostov, a former Bulgarian Eurovision contestant, has posted on social media about witnessing the incident.

He said people at the airport were left "shaking" after seeing the aircraft engulfed by fire.

Another eyewitness, Patrick Horlacher, told the BBC it was "shocking to see" the plane being ravaged by flames just minutes before he was due to board another flight.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly been briefed and expressed condolences to the families of victims.

The region of Murmansk has announced a three-day mourning period.

Can lightning bring down a plane?

With millions of commercial flights taking place every year, lightning strikes in the air are relatively common.

Traditional planes, built using aluminium, are usually able to withstand such strikes as the shell or "skin" of the aircraft acts as a cage, distributing the electricity without causing damage and allowing them to continue their journey safely.

Some newer aircraft are constructed using lighter materials that have lower electrical conductivity, such as carbon fibre, which need to be protected - often using wire mesh or foil.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A plane takes to the air as lightning strikes (stock photo)

In addition, the electronics and connections to an aircraft's fuel tanks are heavily shielded to protect them from external electrical bursts.

Lightning strikes can cause technical malfunctions, causing planes to divert or make emergency landings for precautionary reasons. But crashes following such incidents are rare.

A strike is still likely to be noticed by people on board, though. Passengers may hear loud bangs or experience the cabin lighting up with a bright flash.

Have you been affected? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk

Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways: </s> Russia's state transport agency Rostransnadzor has ordered the country’s airlines to ground their Antonov An-148 aircraft after one crashed last month.

Rostransnadzor chief Viktor Basargin said on March 20 that the decision was made after an inspection of Saratov Airlines.

An An-148 plane operated by the company crashed near Moscow soon after takeoff on February 11, killing all 71 people on board.

Russia’s aviation regulator, Rosaviatsiya, said that all of Saratov's Airlines' flights were suspended until April 27.

Two days after the crash, investigators said that preliminary tests and analyses indicated that the speed gauges could have been covered with ice and shown inaccurate data.

The Moscow-based Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK) suggested on February 13 that heating elements for the gauges were not switched on before the An-148 took off from Moscow's Domodedovo airport on a flight to the Urals city of Orsk.

According to MAK, the flight recorders indicated that the two gauges displayed different speeds before the crash, one rising rapidly while the other showed a speed of zero.

With the difference widening, it said, the crew apparently switched off autopilot and returned to manually flying the plane, which hit the ground six minutes after takeoff.

Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax </s> A supervisor at Sochi International Airport has died after a landing plane careered off the end of the runway into a riverbed and caught fire.

The health ministry says 18 people were injured in the accident, which occurred at about 3am local time as the Utair-operated Boeing 737 from Moscow, carrying 164 passengers and six crew members, was landing.

Transportation minister Yevgeny Ditrikh said airport shift supervisor Vladimir Begiyan, who was one of the first responders to the accident, died of a heart attack at the scene.

The cause of the crash has not been determined, but State news agency RIA, citing local emergency services, said the accident happened after the plane failed to brake in time after landing. </s> A Russian-made Aeroflot plane made a hard emergency landing in Moscow on Sunday before bursting into flames, killing 41 of the 78 people on board.

Video footage showed the rocky crash landing as the jet bounces several times on the runway before its rear portion is engulfed by flames. Other video showed passengers escaping on the plane's emergency inflated slides as fire trucks raced to the scene.

The plane, a Sukhoi Superjet 100, had departed Moscow on Sunday evening, bound for Murmansk in northwest Russia. According to flight tracking service Flightradar24, Aeroflot Flight 1492 indicated a radio communications failure and then a general emergency before its disastrous landing at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport about a half hour after takeoff.

It's not yet clear why the plane turned back to Moscow, though storms were in the area and passengers reportedly said the plane was struck by lightning. Aeroflot said the flight was forced to return due to "technical reasons." The plane's two flight data recorders have been recovered, the Russian state news service TASS reports.

Among the victims of the crash were two children, a U.S. citizen and a flight attendant named Maksim Moiseev who died while trying to help passengers escape the plane, according to TASS.

Investigators are looking into possible causes for the accident, including pilot error, inclement weather and equipment failure, according to Russian media cited by The Associated Press. The Kremlin has also opened a criminal investigation, Charles Maynes reports for NPR from Moscow.

Aeroflot published a list of the flight's survivors, including five who were hospitalized. "The crew did everything in its power to save passenger lives and provide emergency assistance to those involved," the Russian airline said in a statement Monday. "Our thoughts and hearts are with those who have suffered an unspeakable loss. We mourn with you."

A Sukhoi Superjet 100 crashed in Indonesia in 2012 on a demonstration flight of the plane, killing all 45 on board.

Aeroflot says it has been operating the Superjet 100 regional jets since 2011, and counts 50 of the planes in its fleet, with plans to buy 100 more. Reuters reports that the Russian government has pushed Aeroflot to buy more of the Superjets for domestic flights, as a way to support Russia's aircraft industry.

TASS reports that the Superjet 100 is already "considered to be a problematic aircraft because of frequent engine-related malfunctions and a long spare part delivery time." </s> A worker at Sochi International Airport died yesterday after a landing plane careered off the end of the runway into a riverbed and caught fire.

Russia's health ministry said 18 people were injured in the accident, which happened at 3am local time as the Utair-operated Boeing 737 from Moscow, carrying 164 passengers and six crew members, was landing.

The airport said the fire was extinguished within eight minutes. Transportation minister Yevgeny Ditrikh said airport shift supervisor Vladimir Begiyan, who was one of the first responders to the accident, died of a heart attack at the scene. The cause of the crash has not been determined. </s> Russia has grounded all Antonov An-148 aircraft over safety fears a month after the tragic plane crash of a passenger jet outside Moscow after equipment failure.

All 71 passengers and crew aboard Saratov Airlines Flight 703 were killed when the An-148 regional jet plummeted minutes after departing from Domodedovo Airport on Feb. 11. Cockpit recordings showed the captain ordering his co-pilot to gain altitude instead of tilting the plane down, while investigators attributed the crash to different speed readings on the displays due to frozen equipment. </s> A Russian passenger plane carrying 71 people crashed outside Moscow on Sunday after taking off from the capital’s Domodedovo airport, Russian media reported.

The Antonov An-148 plane operated by the domestic Saratov Airlines was flying to Orsk, a city in the Urals, and crashed in the Ramensky district on the outskirts of Moscow. Russian news agencies reported 65 passengers and 6 crew were on board.

News agencies said witnesses in the village of Argunovo saw a burning plane falling from the sky.

A source from Russia’s emergency services told Interfax that the 71 people on board “had no chance” of survival.

The same news agency reported that the wreckage of the plane was spread over a wide area around the crash site.

Russian state television aired a video of the crash site, showing parts of the wreckage in the snow. Russia has seen record high snowfalls in recent days and visibility was reportedly poor.

The Russian-made plane was 7 years-old and bought by Saratov Airlines from another Russian airline a year ago.

Russian media reported that the emergency services were unable to reach the crash site by road and that rescue workers walked to the scene on foot. Emergency services said in a statement that over 150 rescue workers were deployed to the site.

A source at Domodedovo, Moscow’s second largest airport, told agencies that the plane disappeared from radars within two minutes of take off.

The Russian transport minister was on his way to the crash site, agencies reported. The transport ministry said several causes for the crash are being considered, including weather conditions and human error.

The governor of the Orenburg region, where the plane was flying to, told Russian media that “more than 60 people” onboard the plane were from the region.

Prosecutors opened an investigation into Saratov Airlines following the crash.

Plane crashes are common in Russia, where airlines often operate ageing aircraft in testing flying conditions.

A light aircraft crashed in November in Russia’s far east, killing six people on board.

In December 2016 a military plane carrying Russia’s famed Red Army Choir crashed after taking off from the Black Sea resort of Sochi, killing all 92 people on board.

The choir had been due to give a concert to Russian troops operating in Syria.

Pilot error was blamed for that crash.

In March 2016, all 62 passengers died when a FlyDubia jet crashed in bad weather during an aborted landing at Rostov-on-Don airport.
Russian investigators say the flight crew received indications of a failure in the heating for the pitot-static system, which measures parameters including airspeed. The crew received mismatching airspeed information prior to the crash near Moscow. All 71 on board died.