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>On 5 May, an Aeroflot Sukhoi Superjet 100-95B (RA-89098) departed from Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport for flight SU1492 towards Murmansk. Shortly into the flight, the pilots requested to return to Moscow for an emergency landing as the aircraft was hit by a lightning strike losing all electronics on board. 30 minutes after take-off – during the roll out – the aircraft burst into flames, veered left off the runway and came to a stop on the grass adjacent to the runway, the aircraft completely burned down.

“The aircraft issued a distress signal (squawk 7600 – radio failure -, then escalated to 7700 – emergency -, ed.) after take-off. The pilots tried an emergency landing, did not succeed the first time and, at the second attempt, the landing gear hit the ground, then the nose, and the aircraft ignited,” said a source at the Interfax news agency.

In total, 73 passengers and five crew members were onboard the aircraft. Russian media announced that 41 passengers died in the accident, leaving 37 survivors; at least six injured passengers were hospitalized. Initial reports suggest that the fire originated from electrical equipment on board. News agency TASS is reporting that the crew confirmed that their aircraft was hit by a lightning strike.

The airport authorities closed the particular runway, seriously reducing the airport’s capacity.

In a short statement on their website, Aeroflot confirmed the accident with flight SU1492: “The aircraft headed back to Moscow Sheremetyevo after technical issues and caught fire after landing. The passengers left the aircraft via the emergency slides. Victims have been reported, but the exact number still needs to be specified. Emergency medical care is provided to all those in need.”

The aircraft manufacturer Sukhoi Civil Aircraft also issued a rather strange statement:

“On May 5, 2019, SSJ100 performing its flight Moscow-Murmansk returned to the airport of departure upon receipt of the information about the abnormality aboard. After tough landing, the aircraft was burned down. The investigation is launched. The representatives of the Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Company, the manufacturer of the aircraft, are part of the commission conducting the investigation. The following information is to be provided as long as it will appear.

The aircraft MSN 95135 was produced in August 2017. It was under scheduled maintenance at the beginning of April 2019.”

A commission has been established to investigate the causes and circumstances of the accident. The Aeroflot crisis headquarters was quickly assembled.

Посадка пылающего Sukhoi Superjet 100 в Шереметьево. Пилоты – стальные люди pic.twitter.com/ETlzOHbUKw — Дмитрий Смирнов (@dimsmirnov175) May 5, 2019

Суперджет Аэрофлота RA-89098 , рейс AFL1492 pic.twitter.com/nbKN6RsZfV — rouben (@newaviator) May 5, 2019

Шереметьево. Аэрофлот . Сухой Суперджет RA-89098. SU 1492 Москва – Мурманск. https://t.co/B3wUcI5jvy — С.К. (@Sergey_2908) May 5, 2019

1 osoba zginęła a 10 zostało rannych w wyniku awaryjnego lądowania samolotu Rosyjskich Linii Lotniczych Aeroflot, na pokładzie którego tuż po starcie wybuchł pożar… https://t.co/tOGRAp52EA — T.D.Jędruchów (@tdjedruchow) May 5, 2019

UPDATE: Aeroflot #SU1492 footage shows the Sukhoi Superjet bounced on initial touchdown followed by an even harder 2nd ground contact during which the undercarriage collapsed and a fire broke out. There is no visible fire before that point. pic.twitter.com/eIaqmJk8uC — JACDEC (@JacdecNew) May 5, 2019</s>Passengers leapt out of the plane onto an evacuation slide

Russia has said it has no plans to ground its fleet of Sukhoi Superjet 100s after one of the planes burst into flames on landing.

Some 41 people were killed when the fire broke out after the jet made an emergency landing at Sheremetyevo International Airport, north of Moscow.

A criminal investigation has been launched into the incident.

The country's ministry for emergencies has said the plane's will not be prevented from flying, the RIA news agency has reported.

Video taken of the Aeroflot plane's emergency landing showed it rebound on landing and the tail end engulfed in flames.

When the jet finally came to a stop, an inflatable evacuation slide was deployed and passengers leaped out.

It is understood that 73 passengers were on board the aircraft, with five crew.

Aeroflot said the plane had been forced to turn back shortly after take off, blaming "technical reasons".

One crew member and at least two teenagers were among the dead, according to Russia's investigative committee.</s>The SSJ100, which was performing a flight from Moscow to Murmansk, had to make an emergency landing earlier in the day at the Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport due to the fire on board, which ultimately burnt down the aircraft. The Russian Investigative Committee stating 41 dead. Aeroflot confirmed that the fire had been extinguished.
• A fire has broken out on a Sukhoi Superjet 100 passenger plane at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport. A footage from the scene, showing the plane landing while half of it was on fire has emerged on the Internet in the evening.
• A source told Sputnik that the airport was shut for an hour.
• Aeroflot confirmed the information about the ignition of the plane's engines and that the fire had been extinguished. A commission has been created to investigate the causes and circumstances of the incident, while Aeroflot's crisis headquarters has been convened, the statement read.
• The Russian Investigative Committee reported, according to spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko, that thirty-seven out of seventy-eight passengers who were on board a Sukhoi Superjet-100 passenger plane have survived after a fiery accident. One of the injured in plane fire was in serious condition, the head of Sklifosovsky Clinical and Research Institute for Emergency Medicine in the Russian capital, told journalists.
• An investigation into the cause of the incident has been launched. A representative of the Moscow inter-regional transport prosecution office Ekaterina Korotkova said that it will be checked whether there was compliance with the flight safety legislation.
• A source from the emergency services told Russian media that the jet requested an emergency landing and started to reverse and attempted to land, but the first attempt failed; then the jet continued to make a second circle before conducting a hard landing. The source also detailed that one of the passengers noticed one of the wings catch fire and informed the crew about it, prompting them to proceed with an emergency landing.

READ MORE: Plane Catches Fire at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport in Hard Landing
• Airport said that the plane made an emergency landing at Sheremetyevo 28 minutes after take-off.
• The plane underwent scheduled maintenance in April, its manufacturer has said.
• According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered that all necessary assistance be provided to those injured in the plane fire at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport.
• The head of the Vishnevsky Institute of Surgery in Moscow told Sputnik that the institute expects the arrival of three people in total. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that two of those injured were sent to the Sklifosovsky Clinical and Research Institute for Emergency Medicine in Moscow. Their condition is assessed as critical. Meanwhile, three more injured people were taken to a hospital in Khimki in the Moscow Region, the press service of the regional department of the Russian Health Ministry told Sputnik. Three others received medical assistance at the site of the incident and declined to go to hospital, according to the Russian Health Ministry.
• The majority of victims of plane fire received burns and gas inhalation injuries, Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said.

READ MORE: At Least 13 Dead, Including 2 Children, in Sheremetyevo Plane Fire
• The evacuation of passengers from the Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft has taken 55 seconds, what is ahead of the regulatory standard of 90 seconds, Aeroflot’s spokesman Maksim Fetisov said.
• Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz as well as Slovak President Andrej Kiska expressed condolences to the families of the victims of the plane fire.
• Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Transport (Rostransnadzor) said on Monday that it would conduct unscheduled inspections of Aeroflot Airline and Sheremetyevo Airport.</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>Thirteen people on board a Russian Aeroflot passenger plane were killed on Sunday after the aircraft caught fire while making an emergency landing at a Moscow airport, Russian investigators said.

Among the people killed were two children.

The Sukhoi Superjet 100 bounced along the tarmac at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport before the rear part suddenly burst into flames.

Many passengers managed to escape the SU 1492 via the plane’s emergency slides that inflated after the landing.

Reuters reports that the plane was flying from Moscow to the norther Russian city of Murmanks, and had 73 passengers and five crew members.

Authorities have not given a cause for the incident although some passengers mentioned a lightning strike.

Russia’s Investigative Committee said it had opened an investigation and was looking into whether the pilots had breached air safety rules.</s>At least 41 people were killed and several others were injured after a Russian plane burst into flames while attempting an emergency landing at the Moscow airport. Videos of the incident from Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport show panicked passengers using emergency exit slides to escape from the burning aircraft. The tail end of the Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 can be seen completely engulfed by fire, discharging thick, black smoke to the atmosphere.

Aeroflot, Russia's national carrier, revealed that the plane was forced to return to the Sheremetyevo airport due to technical reasons, but it failed to survive the emergency landing. The aircraft departed Sheremetyevo airport at 6.02 pm local time to the city of Murmansk, and soon after the takeoff, the crew issued a distress signal. The plane's engine caught fire on the runway after the hard landing, and soon emergency crew rushed to the spot.

Aeroflot revealed that the emergency crew did everything to save the passengers, and many of them were evacuated within 55 seconds from the plane.

Russian media has reported that two children and a flight attended are among the ones who were dead. As per reports, the plane was carrying 78 passengers and five crew members during the time of the mishap, and the latest tally reveals that 37 people have survived the accident.

Initially, it has been reported that the death toll of the incident is 19. However, it rose sharply later, as Russian emergency workers retrieved bodies of the dead people from the burning wreckage.

Veronika Skvortsova, head of Russia's ministry of health, revealed that six people are now admitted to the hospital, and out of them, three are critically injured.

Russian president Vladimir Putin and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev issued condolences to the family members of the deceased people. Murmansk's Acting Governor Andrey Chibis apparently revealed that the families of the people who killed in the fire will each receive one million rubles, while the injured ones will receive 5,00,000 rubles.</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>Russia sees no reason to ground its domestically-produced Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft despite one of the planes bursting into flames during a crash-landing and killing 41 people, the country's transport minister said on Monday.

The crash-landing on Sunday is the latest serious setback for the plane, the first new passenger jet developed in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union and an airliner held up by Moscow as proof it can produce its own high quality civil passenger aircraft.

Investigators have started trying to piece together why the Aeroflot jet, which had been flying from Moscow to the northern Russian city of Murmansk, was forced to make an emergency landing and why that landing went so badly wrong.

Various versions are being looked into, including technical failure, human error, and bad weather conditions.

Asked by reporters at a news conference if the Sukhoi planes should now be grounded pending the outcome of the investigation, Yevgeny Ditrikh, Russia's transport minister, said: "There are no grounds for that."

Television footage from Sunday showed the plane catching fire on the runway at Moscow's Sheremtyevo airport as it made a bumpy emergency landing.

The plane had been carrying 73 passengers and five crew members.

Ditrikh said the bodies of 41 people killed in the accident had been recovered. Thirty-three passengers and four crew members had survived, he said. Six of the survivors were in a serious condition and receiving treatment.

The plane, built in Russia's Far East in August 2017, 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 mostly on Boeing and Airbus aircraft.

However Aeroflot also owns at least 50 Superjets which it operates on both domestic and international routes.

The Superjet, which first entered service in 2011, has been hit by sporadic concerns over safety and reliability, including a December 2016 grounding after a defect was discovered in an aircraft's tail section.

Interjet Airlines, a Mexican low-cost airline, said in a statement on Sunday it also operated five Superjets "under the highest safety standards." It pledged to follow the Russian investigation into the disaster closely.

A Sukhoi Superjet crashed in Indonesia in 2012, killing all 45 people on board in an accident blamed on human error.

After Sunday's accident in Moscow, an online petition was launched demanding that the Russian authorities ban the Superjet. It had been signed by almost 4,000 people by 1 pm (1000 GMT) on Monday.

Get the latest election news, live updates and election schedule for Lok Sabha Elections 2019 on ndtv.com/elections. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and Instagram for updates from each of the 543 parliamentary seats for the 2019 Indian general elections. Election results will be out on May 23.</s>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

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At least 41 passengers are killed after Sukhoi Superjet 100 (flight SU1492), which suffered an inflight fire, is engulfed by fire after an emergency crash landing at Sheremetyevo International Airport, Moscow, Russia. A five-person crew and 73 passengers were on board.