A passenger plane is seen on fire after an emergency landing at the Sheremetyevo Airport outside Moscow on May 5, 2019. (The Investigative Committee of Russia/Handout via Reuters)
New video footage shows the moment a stricken Aeroflot passenger plane bounced on a Moscow runway before it burst into flames, killing 41 people.
The Aeroflot plane can be seen bouncing down the runway on May 5. According to reports, the pilots were not able to land without the assistance of autopilot after the plane was struck by lightning.
Members of the crew confirmed the plane was hit by lightning before they lost radio communications.
“There was a bright flash and a bang,” pilot Denis Evdokimov is quoted by the Independent as saying. “The fire began after landing, I understand, because of the landing.”
An investigation revealed that there may have been an “over-dependence on autopilot” as well as “pilot error” that contributed to the cause of the accident.
Many passengers on board SU 1492 then escaped via the plane’s emergency slides that inflated after the hard landing.
“We took off and then lightning struck the plane,” the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily cited one surviving passenger, Pyotr Egorov, as saying, Reuters reported.
The SSJ-100 aircraft of Aeroflot airlines on fire during an emergency landing in Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow on May 5, 2019. (@artempetrovich via AP)
Egorov noted that the plane bounced while it landed.
“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,” he said.
Last week, a survivor of the plane crash, Mikhail Savchenko, wrote on Facebook, “I do not know what to say about people who ran out with bags,” The Associated Press reported. “God is their judge.”
Smoke billows from a Sukhoi passenger plane after it made an emergency landing due to an onboard fire at Sheremetyevo International Airport, outside Moscow on May 5, 2019. (Twitter @Justin Goslin via Reuters)
“But I really want to ask [people] not to persecute them, I am sure that it is very hard for them now,” Savchenko wrote, according to the New York Post‘s translation. “I do not think that at least one person in this burning hell coolly and deliberately dragged suitcases.”
“I do not know how the psyche works in such situations, [that is] a question for the experts,” he added.
The Sukhoi SSJ100 aircraft of Aeroflot airlines is covered in fire retardant foam after an emergency landing in Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow on May 5, 2019. (Moscow News Agency photo via AP)
Of his own departure, Savchenko also stated: “No, I didn’t drag my suitcases. No, I didn’t fly business. No, the moment I was filming, there were no people around me that I could help. But believe me, it’s not much easier.”
Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter with 15 years experience who started as a local New York City reporter. Having joined The Epoch Times' news team in 2009, Jack was born and raised near Modesto in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
