Russia to investigate whether pilot error caused fiery emergency landing that killed 37

Investigators are looking into whether the pilots are to blame for the fiery emergency landing of an airliner in Moscow on Sunday that killed 41 of the 78 people on board.

Kommersant newspaper reported that the investigative committee and international aviation committee considered pilot error to be the “leading explanation” for the tragedy after a Russian-made Sukhoi Superjet 100 was struck by lightning.

Meanwhile, RBC newspaper quoted sources saying the investigation was examining Aeroflot airline's training programme after allegations that the crew made several mistakes.

The investigative committee said on Monday it was considering “insufficient skill of the pilots, dispatchers and those who performed the technical inspection of the plane” as a possible cause, along with mechanical problems and poor weather.

It has opened a criminal case into a fatal “violation of the rules of safe movement and exploitation of air transport”.

Fourteen minutes after the Aeroflot flight to Murmansk took off from Sheremetyevo airport, the commander informed the control tower via backup radio that a lightning strike had knocked out electronics including autopilot.

Taking manual control, the crew turned back and made an emergency landing rather than circling to burn off fuel. Video of the incident showed that the plane bounced off the runway, then landed hard on its tail, which immediately burst into flames.

Passengers began escaping down evacuation slides deployed out of the front doors, but 22-year-old steward Maxim Moiseyev was unable to open the rear doors. He and 36 others seated toward the back of the plane, including two children, never made it to safety.

Passenger Oleg Molchanov told the website Meduza that he nearly lost consciousness from the smoke and had to crawl to the front on his hands and knees.

“At that time the hands of other passengers started to reach out of the smoke. We pulled three people out,” he recalled.

The pilots and others were hospitalised with carbon monoxide poisoning.

Kommersant said investigators believe the airplane came down too fast with its nose too far down, breaking the landing gear after two bounces and spraying fuel onto the hot engines. It added that the ground crew may not have reacted quickly enough.

While a ground crew jeep drove toward the airliner within seconds after it came to a stop, fire engines took longer to arrive.

RBC claimed that the pilots had failed to turn off the engines and opened the cockpit window, possibly fanning the flames.

“I can't tell you exactly why it happened,” a man presented as captain Denis Yevdokimov said in a phone recording posted on the Telegram messenger app. “The speed was sufficient, we approached the runway while reducing our vertical according to procedure.”

But Roman Gusarov, editor of industry site Avia.ru, told The Telegraph that video suggested the plane landed at excess speed far from the beginning of the runway. He said it was unclear why pilots couldn't continue to fly the Superjet normally on manual control and why first responders were not already waiting by the runway.

“The plane was operable, there were no preconditions for an accident,” he said. “Everything was functioning, only radio communications weren't, but planes don't break up because of radio communications.”

Developed by state-owned Sukhoi in 2011, the Superjet was Russia's attempt to break into world aviation markets. It had not been involved in fatal accidents since a demonstration flight plowed into the side of a mountain in Indonesia in 2012.

Sukhoi said that the plane involved in the fire was produced in 2017 and underwent maintenance in April.

However, Mexico's Interjet grounded 15 of its 22 Superjets this year, complaining that the engines, which are produced by a joint venture with France's Safran, broke down frequently and took a long time to fix.

More than 150,000 have signed an online petition to ban the Superjet started after Sunday's tragedy.

“Yes, air companies have made complaints about the Superjet, but in this catastrophe there are no technical explanations, it could have landed safely if crew hadn't made mistakes,” Mr Gusarov said.

Russia has suffered several air catastrophes since 2011, when it was ranked the most dangerous country to fly.

The government has attempted to reduce the number of small airlines that may not have money or staff to keep planes in top working order.

While the climate is harsh, a greater problem may be the lack of experienced pilots in the growing air industry here. The situation has been exacerbated by the departure of many captains to China, where salaries are two to three times higher.

Aeroflot's director said in June the company had a deficit of more than 60 senior pilots.