‘Scared to death’: Passenger on board ill-fated Sukhoi-100 recalls crash-landing

People were scared to death on board the Sukhoi Superjet 100 during its emergency landing, one of the passengers who survived the tragedy said. Forty-one people died after the plane crash-landed and caught fire.

“The flight came back. We had a rough landing. We almost lost consciousness from fear. The plane was bouncing like a grasshopper and started burning already on the ground,” Petr Egorov told Komsomolskaya Pravda. 

Several videos that emerged from inside the plane show the plane’s wings engulfed in flames as it rolls fast on the runway. People heard on the video are shouting in panic.

“This plane was landing engulfed in a terrible fire. Firefighters were quickly on the scene but I couldn’t see it evacuated from where I was in the terminal,” a witness to the tragedy, observing the unfolding calamity from the ground, said.

Footage from the scene of the horrific accident showed the plane making an extremely hard landing, bouncing off the ground, before becoming engulfed in flames. Fire and rescue services immediately arrived at the scene to deal with the emergency.

People rushed to get off the plane via emergency slides as the rear of the plane was engulfed in flames and a thick plume of black smoke rose. It took people around 55 seconds to get off the aircraft, RT correspondent, Igor Zhdanov noted, reporting from the airport. He also managed to speak to one of the witnesses of the crash landing, who was observing the incident from another plane on the runway.

“We sat near the window. I just turned my head and all of a sudden I saw a burning flame with a huge plume of black smoke. Firefighters arrived at the scene within two minutes. They started fighting the fire,” the witness said.

“They did not show signs of panic. As the plane was too close to the people waiting on the runway, we did not know it was landing. It looked like it was just 50 meters from the nearest aircraft,” he added.

At least 41 people out of 78 people onboard Aeroflot flight SU 1492 died in the tragedy, authorities confirmed, noting that six out of 37 survivors were rushed to a hospital. Officials have yet to confirm the cause of the incident. It’s been reported that the connection between the plane and ground control was lost. One of the theories about the accident is that lighting hit the plane.

Like this story? Share it with a friend!