Moscow • At least 40 people including at least two children and one crew member died on Sunday after an Aeroflot plane made an emergency landing and burst into flames at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, investigators said.
The death toll was significantly higher than an earlier figure of 13, but authorities gave no reason for the jump, which was announced hours after the fire was put out.
Dramatic footage of the incident showed the tail of the Sukhoi Superjet 100 bursting into flames and continuing down the runway before coming to a halt and passengers fleeing down emergency slides.
According to investigators the fuel tank burst on landing. Of the 78 people onboard 37 survived, including four crew members. Several people were severely injured in the fire, according to emergency services.
Aeroflot said flight SU1492 from Moscow to Murmansk, in northwestern Russia, had been forced to return to the capital’s airport for “technical reasons.”
“An investigation has been launched into the incident, and Aeroflot has activated its crisis response team,” it added in a statement.
The airline also published a list of 33 survivors including five whom it said were hospitalized. The list was incomplete, it said, and would be updated as soon as information became available.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full probe into the incident and expressed his sympathy to the victims.
“Clear outcomes on the reasons and circumstances of the aviation accident will be presented after a thorough investigation based on the data,” Svetlana Petrenko of the state’s investigative committee said.
The plane’s pilot sent at least one distress signal shortly after takeoff due to technical problems, according to local media. Other reports said the plane had been struck by lightning.
Panic broke out on board the plane, according to videos that were published online, showing the right wing of the plane had caught fire.
Dozens of ambulances were sent to the scene and many of the survivors were treated for smoke inhalation. Other planes were rerouted to different airports.
Aviation authorities sent experts to the airport to establish whether safety standards had been adhered to. Criminal investigators were also sent.
The Sukhoi Superjet 100 involved in the crash is the pride of the Russian aviation industry. It is the first new Russian aircraft design since the end of the Soviet Union and was approved for flight in 2011.
The state-owned airline Aeroflot announced the purchase of a further 100 jets of the type late in 2018.
However, there have been numerous reports of technical failures and other incidents and sales have been slow. Forty-five people were killed in Indonesia in 2012 during a demonstration flight.
The aircraft involved in Sunday’s incident had been in service since 2017 and had last been inspected in April, the news agency Tass reported citing aviation authorities.
In February 2018, 71 people died when a Russian Antonov An-148 passenger jet crashed in a field southeast of Moscow.