Details are still emerging, though videos show the terrifying incident that occurred today on Aeroflot 1492, operated by a Sukhoi Superjet 100. The plane had the registration code RA-89098, and was less than two years old (it was delivered to the airline in June 2017).
The plane was scheduled to operate the roughly 900 mile flight from Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport to Murmansk in Northern Russia.
The plane took off shortly after 6PM local time, and the pilots declared an emergency shortly therefore. The plane was in the air for 27 minutes before landing back in Moscow on fire.
RT reports that the plane had 78 passengers onboard, who were evacuated upon landing. Most reports suggest that there were no fatalities, though now I’m also seeing some reports of possible fatalities, so I’m crossing my fingers for everyone onboard and their families.
A criminal investigation is being opened into the incident.
Here’s a video of it landing, already in flames:
Посадка пылающего Sukhoi Superjet 100 в Шереметьево. Пилоты – стальные люди pic.twitter.com/ETlzOHbUKw
— Дмитрий Смирнов (@dimsmirnov175) May 5, 2019
Here are videos of it on fire:
Спасатели сообщают, что все 78 пассажиров горящего самолёта в Шереметьево эвакуированы, пострадали всего пять человек.
Это какое-то невероятное чудо! pic.twitter.com/0CCyMRxcSH— Дмитрий Смирнов (@dimsmirnov175) May 5, 2019
Ад в Шереметьево: Sukhoi Superjet 100, вылетевший из Москвы в Мурманск, вернулся из-за пожара на борту. Горит как факел, а в это время из передних дверей полным ходом идет эвакуация pic.twitter.com/oRWI6npPCu
— Дмитрий Смирнов (@dimsmirnov175) May 5, 2019
My thoughts are with those onboard. Obviously seeing incidents like this is absolutely terrifying, though at the same time it’s also reassuring in a way that a plane can quite literally land in flames and most people are able to evacuate without injury.
Following this incident there are significant delays to and from SVO Airport, given that the airport is now only using one runway.
While we have no clue what happened (and I’m not suggesting the issue had anything to do with the plane — we don’t know), it is worth noting that the plane involved has had quite a few issues.
The Sukhoi Superje is a Russian built plane of which there are currently just under 150 in the sky, and a total of 300 have been ordered. The biggest customer for the plane is Aeroflot, which already has 60 in their fleet, and has a total of 150 on these order.
As an airplane geek I’ve been wanting to fly this plane for quite a while, and the closest one you’ll find to the US is in Mexico, as Interjet operates a fleet of these planes. Unfortunately the airline has had serious problems with this plane, and only seven of Interjet’s 22 Superjet’s are airworthy as of a few weeks ago.
For a while the airline just wanted to get rid of their Superjets due to these problems, while their new management team is asking for Russia’s help with once again making them airworthy.
Notice: If ever on a plane requiring emergency evacuation and I am impeded by someone grabbing luggage, there will be consequences. Sometime...somewhere! Haha.
Stunning that people do that!
@Endre - difference between "importance of human life between the two countries? What?? That's ironic from the country that has made school shootings (i.e. the killing of innocent kids) tolerable.
Look at how many are running away with their carry-on luggage.
@Rich: I'm not certain about the SSJ but most short haul aircraft don't have a fuel dump capability, as the fuel capacity is not as high as larger long haul aircraft. That could also explain why they flew around for a while before landing (assuming they weren't already in flames!). This is often done to burn off fuel to prevent an overweight landing, or at least to reduce the weight so that the overweight landing...
@Rich: I'm not certain about the SSJ but most short haul aircraft don't have a fuel dump capability, as the fuel capacity is not as high as larger long haul aircraft. That could also explain why they flew around for a while before landing (assuming they weren't already in flames!). This is often done to burn off fuel to prevent an overweight landing, or at least to reduce the weight so that the overweight landing isn't so dramatic.
Something obviously went seriously wrong here. I'm reading reports of a lightning strike but that really shouldn't cause anything like this. Aircraft are designed to be hit by lightning and suffer no major effects. Whatever the cause, it's an absolute tragedy. RIP to those who perished
heart-wrenching video...I cannot imagine the plight of those in the rear of the plane, in those last few minutes...
I wonder why they didn't dump fuel? I read somewhere that they didn't want to dump it over Moscow. I'm no expert, but at that altitude and speed, most fuel would probably evaporate before it hit the ground...but again, what do i know...
Double post, sorry, but I forgot to mention: SSJ100s seem to be operating as normal. They mostly fly from terminals B and D so I can’t see any here at terminal F, but there are plenty taxiing around so they don’t seem to be grounded or operating in a reduced capacity. Obviously I’m not saying they should be grounded, that’s not for me to decide, but it’s something to keep in mind regardless. Also, there...
Double post, sorry, but I forgot to mention: SSJ100s seem to be operating as normal. They mostly fly from terminals B and D so I can’t see any here at terminal F, but there are plenty taxiing around so they don’t seem to be grounded or operating in a reduced capacity. Obviously I’m not saying they should be grounded, that’s not for me to decide, but it’s something to keep in mind regardless. Also, there seem to be a few flights to China (Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou) that are still delayed since yesterday evening.
I’m at Sheremetyevo now. There are fewer cancellations than I thought there would be, but around 40% of flights are experiencing delays of over 6 hours. Some of these delays seem to be rolling. The aircraft is obviously still on the runway and clearly visible from the terminal (I’m in F but E and D are even closer).
This is terribly sad news :( I will be curious to read the report on the cause. While aviation safety has become much better in the last decade in Russia, there still seems to be regular occurrences. They’re saying the fire trucks responded in two minutes, as reported by RT. I’m no expert, but that doesn’t seem like a terrible response time. However, screw those jerks who grabbed their carry-on luggage. 41 people died, and...
This is terribly sad news :( I will be curious to read the report on the cause. While aviation safety has become much better in the last decade in Russia, there still seems to be regular occurrences. They’re saying the fire trucks responded in two minutes, as reported by RT. I’m no expert, but that doesn’t seem like a terrible response time. However, screw those jerks who grabbed their carry-on luggage. 41 people died, and there’s a good chance that the delay these passengers caused led to the deaths of some of those people. Disgusting.
@everyone saying there was an emergency landing attempted and aborted at first, look at the actual data. That loop on the image posted by lucky isn't an emergency landing attempt, it's some sort of holding pattern at low altitude. Looking at it on FR24 you can see the aircraft never descended below around 2100 feet and that whole loop was done at over 200 knots. Doesn't look like speed and altitude were stable, which raises...
@everyone saying there was an emergency landing attempted and aborted at first, look at the actual data. That loop on the image posted by lucky isn't an emergency landing attempt, it's some sort of holding pattern at low altitude. Looking at it on FR24 you can see the aircraft never descended below around 2100 feet and that whole loop was done at over 200 knots. Doesn't look like speed and altitude were stable, which raises some questions about how controllable the aircraft already was. If that loop was a first attempt at an emergency landing they wouldn't have gone that far back out and waited another 10+ minutes to try to land again.
41 dead, says wsj.com
also another crash this weekend:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6995573/Passenger-reveals-horrifying-moment-Boeing-737-bounced-crashed-Florida-river.html
no mention of the Florida 737 crash....?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6995573/Passenger-reveals-horrifying-moment-Boeing-737-bounced-crashed-Florida-river.html
Maybe there were people onboard, who criticize Putin??? No fire trux to be seen. They let it burn til the very end! R.IP.
Oh god, I remember getting the Flightradar24 squawk 7700 alert for this. I thought that it was just another emergency landing, and not that serious
“Obviously seeing incidents like this is absolutely terrifying, though at the same time it’s also reassuring in a way that a plane can quite literally land in flames and most people are able to evacuate without injury.”
This needs to be changed. Sadly more people have perished than have survived. And a lack of fatalities do not mean a lack of injuries either.
I was thinking the same thing with the lack of fire trucks. This was in Moscow no less. Years ago I was on a plane that had an emergency landing in Fort Lauderdale shortly after takeoff. When we came in they had the runway lined with firetrucks with lights blazing as we came in. Turns out it was a faulty sensor so no actual fire but they were ready for it and there was not...
I was thinking the same thing with the lack of fire trucks. This was in Moscow no less. Years ago I was on a plane that had an emergency landing in Fort Lauderdale shortly after takeoff. When we came in they had the runway lined with firetrucks with lights blazing as we came in. Turns out it was a faulty sensor so no actual fire but they were ready for it and there was not a lot of time between the captain calling the emergency and our landing. I feel for these people. A lot of lives could have been saved with higher standards for an emergency landing.
... But again.. Seeing a new video, Looks like the fire started after a major bounce off the runway and slamming back to ground..
Irish airline Cityjet bought some of these but they were not a success. I don't think it ever received certification for London City Airport (which was Cityjet's base), so it ended up mainly on wet leases. On top of that, reliability was poor and spare parts were hard to come by. I saw two in storage in Shannon a few weeks back, and what I've heard since is that the 7 Superjets Cityjet have were sold to Adria.
Condolences to all those involved.
I've flown the Superjet in Europe as it was a cityjet aircraft operating for Brussels Airlines. It was a rather pleasant experience but compared to the A220 it wasn't as good but until today I wouldn't mind flying it again.
My thoughts and respect are with all of those effected by this awful event.
We had emergency landing at San Antonio about two years ago (delta) due to losing pressure in cabin. We had 4! fire trucks waiting at various taxi off locations. Per captain, standard procedure, don't panic, no fire.
Difference between standards of flight /airport rules and importance of human life between the two countries.
No fire truck anywhere in sight ?
Is this a joke, or do Russians have no emergency procedures ??
I've flown on the Interjet Superjet and from a passenger standpoint it was quite nice. No complaints.
41 people reported to have died. Terribly sad news.
Now the authorities are talking about more than 40 casualties.
@John
https://twitter.com/bazabazon/status/1125122587598651393
There wasn't a fire before touchdown. The hard landing after the bounce seemed to have caused it.
No fire trucks or foam anywhere near the runway. Other videos appear to show water rather than foam used to fight the fire. Some reports quote a passenger saying the plane was struck by lightning shortly after takeoff, returned to the airport, had a very hard landing, and caught fire on the runway after touching down. Flightradar24 data suggests first attempt emergency landing aborted after coming in too fast and off-axis.
Holy friggin' s***!
Looks like absolute cluster... failure from rescue services PoW.
A) Flight declared emergency well in advance.
B) Looks like fire before touchdown
C) Runway not foamed? This is done even for smaller issues.
D) People are running to random directions. Last clip shows them far from plane.
E) Previous point implies some time has already gone since plane stopped. No rescue in sight.
F) Random...
Holy friggin' s***!
Looks like absolute cluster... failure from rescue services PoW.
A) Flight declared emergency well in advance.
B) Looks like fire before touchdown
C) Runway not foamed? This is done even for smaller issues.
D) People are running to random directions. Last clip shows them far from plane.
E) Previous point implies some time has already gone since plane stopped. No rescue in sight.
F) Random airport truck drives into the crowd. Looks like sewage truck? WTF?
Follow up: it looks in the last video like the right engine and wing are completely on fire but the engine is continuing to run. Obviously too early to say, but if the engine on that side is not controllable (could not be shut down after landing) perhaps that is where the fire began? It’s also strange to see that they declared an emergency over an issue that eventually led to this big of a...
Follow up: it looks in the last video like the right engine and wing are completely on fire but the engine is continuing to run. Obviously too early to say, but if the engine on that side is not controllable (could not be shut down after landing) perhaps that is where the fire began? It’s also strange to see that they declared an emergency over an issue that eventually led to this big of a fire yet continued to circle for half an hour...at this point I’m just thinking out loud though.
I’m flying out of SVO early tomorrow morning, will report back. Looks like a pretty horrible fire, impressive that it was still controllable enough to land (though seems to have lost control after landing), and obviously this could have been even worse than it already is. My thoughts are with the families of the victims. As a sidenote I have flown the SSJ100 many times and have never felt unsafe in any way, and I’m hoping this isn’t a design issue...
I would sue those bastard with suitcases. How can someone think that his carryon bag worths more than someone else's life.
There are at least 13 deaths, just confirmed by TASS agency.
Horrible
Not one fire truck waiting. Didn't he declared emergency and tried to land twice?
I'm willing to bet people took their time to grab their items from the overhead bin before evacuating.
That's some incredible footage! Hope everyone is ok.
I hope there were survivors.
Ben, obviously we all hope that there are no fatalities, but it boggles my mind how you can see people walking away from the plane with suitcases....disgusting and selfish. People like that should never be allowed to fly again. It slows down the evacuation process and can perhaps puncture the slide.
Latest news in Russia say its 1 dead and 5 injured, not saying if its pax or cabin crew.
As another aviation geek, I would strongly recommend not trying that plane, as I flew it once and wrote goodbye messages to my family.
SJ100 shall be grounded much stricter than 737M
In the video of passengers coming down the slide, it seems like quite a bit of time between most of those coming down.
There are some reports (not confirmed yet) that there may be around 10 casualties.
So let's wait and see, hoping the reports are false.