41 feared dead in Russian plane blaze disaster: investigators

Forty-one people including at least two children are believed to have died when a Russian passenger plane made an emergency landing and was engulfed in flames at Moscow's busiest airport Sunday, investigators said.

Dramatic footage shared on social media showed Aeroflot's Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft, land at Sheremetyevo international airport, flames and black smoke pouring from its fuselage.

Passengers could be seen leaping onto an inflatable slide at the front and running from the blazing plane as huge black columns of smoke billowed into the sky.

"There were 78 people including crew members on board the plane," the Investigative Committee said in a statement, adding it had headed to the northwest Russian city of Murmansk.

"According to the updated info which the investigation has as of now, 37 people survived."
The tabloid newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted one passenger, Petr Egorov, who said: "We had just taken off and the aircraft was hit by lightning.... The landing was rough, I almost passed out from fear."