At least one person has been confirmed dead in the horrific crash-landing of an Aeroflot Superjet-100 plane with some 80 people on board in Moscow. Witnesses describe how the jet went up in flames as people scrambled to evacuate.
Chilling videos published on social media show the jet sitting on a landing strip of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport with its rear engulfed in a firestorm with bursts of flames rising high above the fuselage. At the same time, people are seen desperately evacuating from the front exit and running away from the jet.
“Hell in Sheremetyevo: Sukhoi Superjet 100 en route from Moscow to Murmansk had to turn back because of a fire on board,” Dmitry Smirnov, a journalist with Russia’s Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, wrote in a tweet accompanying the video. “It burns like a torch while the evacuation … is still in full swing.”
A correspondent with RT Spanish was at the Sheremetyevo airport and saw the burning plane.
“We were on board of our plane at the Sheremetyevo airport. We were flying to Helsinki, although our flight has now been cancelled. We were sitting really close to the plane, which was completely on fire. The flames were huge. It was very difficult for the emergency services to tackle the blaze,” RT’s Boris Kuznetsov said.
The fire has since been extinguished, revealing the full extent of the damage to the plane’s tail.
Preliminary reports say that the plane’s crew declared an emergency before landing, but the causes of the enormous blaze are still unclear. Media at first assumed the jet had hit the landing strip, then reports of a lightning bolt hitting the plane appeared, but neither has yet been confirmed.
The plane’s operator Aeroflot has, meanwhile, come out saying the plane’s engines did go on fire during the emergency landing.
Also on rt.com INTENSE VIDEO captures FIERY landing of Superjet-100Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!