Russian investigators are now considering pilot error as a possible cause of the Sukhoi Superjet 100 crash in Moscow according to the BBC.
Read the full report: CLICK HERE
From The Moscow Times: A summary of what we now know about the Aeroflot Superjet 100 crash landing in Moscow. Read the full article: CLICK HERE
From the Independent: The Independent asks the question about the safety of the airlines of Russia. Read the full story.
Some surviving passengers from Aeroflot flight SU1492 are now reporting the Superjet 100 was hit by lightning and was on fire when it landed. However video of the aircraft initially landing do not visibly indicate any fire on board. The video shows the aircraft making a hard landing and bouncing up in the air before its crash landed. The airline stated the airliner returned to Moscow (Sheremetyevo) for “technical reasons”.
One question remains: Why was the fire equipment not standing by the runway?
Read more from the BBC: CLICK HERE
Update from 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.”
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.
Read the full report from Reuters: CLICK HERE
Aeroflot Russian Airlines has made this announcement:
On March 31 Aeroflot will launch its summer timetable, which runs through October 26, 2019.
This coming season, Aeroflot will fly to 159 destinations, including 58 destinations in Russia and 101 destinations in 54 other countries around the world.
As the leading airline for Europe-Asia transit routes, offering some of the quickest and most affordable options between the two continents, Aeroflot is continuing to develop strategically important destinations in Asia. From June 1, the number of flights to Seoul will double in comparison with the winter season (from 7 to 14 per week). As usual, Aeroflot will also increase the frequency of its flights to Beijing from 14 to 21 flights per week for the summer season.
In the European market, this summer Aeroflot will further expand its presence with flights to two new destinations from June 1:
There will be five flights a week between Moscow and Marseille. Flights to Palma de Mallorca will operate four times a week. Aeroflot will operate new flights on the Airbus A320 family aircraft.
Aeroflot will also increase flight frequencies to many international destinations, with more flights to European capitals than in the winter season:
Aeroflot will also offer more flights to European resorts. Flight frequencies will increase on routes to:
The airline will also resume flights to other popular European summer destinations:
Flight frequencies to the following cities in Middle East and Asia will also increase:
Aeroflot’s summer schedule will be seeing its usual increase in the number of flights to the following US cities:
Aeroflot also plans to increase its flights to cities in other CIS countries:
On the domestic market the main news is the launch of two new flights:
Flights to these destinations are scheduled from June 1 to October 1. Aeroflot will operate one flight per day on each of these routes on Boeing 737-800 aircraft. In addition, the new timetable will continue to operate daily flights between Sochi and Simferopol. The Company is helping to make air travel more accessible to all Russians by launching direct flights between regions, bypassing Moscow.
On a number of routes flight frequency will significantly increase. To meet seasonal demand, Aeroflot has developed an extensive flight programme to Black Sea resorts. Compared to the 2018/19 winter timetable, Aeroflot will increase flight frequencies to the following destinations:
In the coming season Aeroflot will resume flights to another Black Sea resort – Gelendzhik (21 flights per week).
The number of flights will also increase on routes to other Russian cities:
Aeroflot’s route network will be complemented by the extensive geography of its subsidiary airlines.
This summer, Rossiya Airlines under the commercial management of PJSC Aeroflot will operate flights to 59 different destinations under Aeroflot’s commercial management. They include over 40 domestic and international flights from St. Petersburg, including flights to Simferopol, Sochi, Tel Aviv, Rome, Milan, Nice, Paris, London, Berlin, Prague and more. Rossiya Airlines will operate another half a dozen flights from Moscow Sheremetyevo to various destinations in Russia (including cities in the country’s Far East), Paris-Orly, Nice, Denpasar (Bali) and Colombo.
Under Aeroflot’s commercial management regional carrier Aurora will also offer passengers 20 destinations in the Far East.
Low-cost airline Pobeda develops its own flight network. For the summer season, the network will be expanded to include 120 destinationsin Russia and abroad.
In total, Aeroflot Group will operate regular flights to 358 routes (296 of which are unique) in 57 countries throughout summer 2019.
The Group’s route network will be supplemented by 162 destinations operated by partner airlines under code-sharing agreements. Thanks to this, a further 19 countries will appear in Aeroflot’s route network: Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Ghana, Iceland, Kenya, Laos, Luxembourg, Malta, Macedonia, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia.
In total, including cooperation with partners, Aeroflot Group will operate flights to 520 destinations (458 of which are unique) in 76 countries in the summer 2019 season.
Top Copyright Photo: Aeroflot Russian Airlines Airbus A330-343 VQ-BPI (msn 1323) AMS (Ton Jochems). Image: 946099.
Aeroflot aircraft slide show:
Aeroflot has begun ticket sales for flights to Palma de Mallorca, the capital of the Spanish island of Mallorca. Regular flights on the Moscow – Palma de Mallorca – Moscow route will be launched on June 1, 2019.
Four weekly flights on Airbus A320 aircraft will operate on the following schedule:
Moscow – Palma de Mallorca
– flight SU2518 will depart Moscow on Saturdays and Sundays at 7:55, on Tuesdays and Fridays at 12:15.
Palma de Mallorca – Moscow
– flight SU2519 will depart Palma de Mallorca on Saturdays and Sundays at 12:35, on Tuesdays and Fridays at 17:15 (local time).
Aeroflot is continuously expanding its route network and increasing flight frequencies to popular destinations. Aeroflot flies to 152 destinations in 55 countries, including 54 in Russia. In its Winter 2018/19 schedule Aeroflot has launched 14 new destinations, which will be serviced both by the Company’s own fleet and by Rossiya Airline. Aeroflot’s route network spans the largest cities in the Northern Caucasus, including Grozny, Vladikavkaz, Makhachkala, Nazran (Magas) and Nalchik, as well as the cities of the Volga region – Izhevsk and Ulyanovsk. On top of that, Aeroflot has launched direct flights from Moscow to Osh and Bukhara. On the international front Aeroflot added flights to three European cities: Gothenburg, Dublin and Ljubljana, as well as flights to Denpasar – the largest city of the Indonesian island of Bali – and Colombo – the largest metropolis of Sri Lanka.
Top Copyright Photo (all others by Aeroflot): Aeroflot Russian Airlines Airbus A320-214 VP-BWD (msn 2116) (CSKA Moscow Football Club) ARN (Stefan Sjogren). Image: 942358.
Aeroflot aircraft slide show:
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