41 feared dead in Russian plane blaze disaster: investigators
Moscow: 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." Another 11 people were injured, Dmitry Matveyev, the Moscow region's health minister said earlier in the day. Three of them had been hospitalised but they were not in a serious condition, he added.
Investigators said they were looking into various lines of inquiry and it was premature to draw any conclusions about the cause of the accident.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had offered his condolences to the victims' loved ones, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has also ordered a special committee to investigate the disaster.
The jet carrying 73 passengers and five crew members had just left Sheremetyevo when the crew issued a distress signal, officials said. "Flight Su-1492 took off on schedule at 6:02 pm (15H02 GMT)," said a statement from the airport.
"After the take-off, the crew reported an anomaly and decided to come back to the departure airport. At 6:30 pm, the aircraft made an emergency landing," it added.
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."
"The plane sent out a distress signal after takeoff," a source told Interfax news agency.
"It attempted an emergency landing but did not succeed the first time, and on the second time the landing gear hit (the ground), then the nose did, and it caught fire," the source added.
Interfax, citing an anonymous source, said the plane had landed with its fuel tanks full because, having lost contact with air traffic controllers, it was too dangerous to dump its fuel tanks over Moscow.
Several flights have been diverted to other Moscow airports or Nizhny Novgorod, some 500 kilometres (310 miles) east of the Russian capital.
The Sukhoi Superjet-100 was the first civilian aircraft developed in Russia's post-Soviet era and at the time of its launch, in 2011, was a source of national pride.
But it struggled to convince buyers from airlines outside Russia, and several foreign carriers that did buy it have since prefered to cut back its use or phase it out completely, citing its reliability.
The Russian government offered subsidies to encourage Russian airlines to buy the Superjet and Aeroflot became its main operator. In September 2018, it announced a record order of 100 Superjet-100s
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Assam polls: Cong announces first list of 42 candidates, Gaurav to contest from Jorhat
Guwahati (PTI): The opposition Congress on Tuesday took the lead in announcing its first list of 42 candidates for the upcoming assembly elections in Assam, with it comprising both sitting MLAs and former ministers, and also new faces, including sons of three prominent politicians.
The party's chief ministerial candidate and state president Gaurav Gogoi will contest from the prestigious Jorhat assembly constituency, currently held by BJP's Hitendra Nath Goswami.
The Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha will make his first electoral foray for the assembly.
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Gogoi is currently the party MP from the Jorhat parliamentary constituency and previously represented Kaliabor twice before it was reconstituted during the delimitation exercise in the state.
The leader of the opposition in the state assembly, Debabrata Saikia, will contest from the family stronghold of Nazira, which he has represented since 2016. His father, former chief minister Hiteswar Saikia, and his mother, Hemoprava Saikia, previously represented the constituency.
Three sitting MLAs -- Nandita Das from Hajo-Sualkuchi, Diganta Barman from Barkhetry and Nurul Huda from Rupohihat -- have also been included in the list.
Das, a two-time MLA, had earlier contested from Boko but following the delimitation exercise in the state, she has been shifted to Hajo-Sualkuchi while Barman and Huda will contest from the same seats they represented in the current assembly.
Former minister and state Congress president Ripun Bora will contest from Barchalla while another former minister, Ajit Singh, will contest from Udharbond constituency in Barak Valley.
Former minister and Deputy Speaker Pranati Phukan, a four-time MLA till 2016, will contest from Naharkatia in Upper Assam.
Tanzil Hussain, son of Dhubri MP Rakibul Hussain, will contest from Samaguri where he had lost to BJP's Diplu Ranjan Sarmah in the 2024 by-elections which was necessitated following the election of the senior Hussain to Lok Sabha.
Prateek Bordoloi, son of Nagaon MP Prodyut Bordoloi, will contest the Margherita seat which was represented by his father thrice since 2001.
Former five-time MP and prominent tea tribe leader Paban Singh Ghatowar's son Pranjal Ghatowar will contest from the Chabua-Lahowal seat.
Assam Pradesh Mahila Congress president Mira Borthakur, who had unsuccessfully contested the last parliamentary polls from Gauhati, has been given the ticket for the prestigious Dispur constituency.
Former BJP MLA Ashok Sarma, who was denied ticket by the ruling party in 2021 and went on to join the Congress in 2024, will contest from his previous Nalbari seat.
Another former BJP MLA and Deputy Speaker Aminul Haque Laskar, who joined the Congress in 2024, will contest from Sonai constituency in Barak Valley.
Former AGP MLA Satyabrat Kalita, who joined the Congress in September 2025, will contest from Kamalpur seat.
Other prominent faces in the list include former Congress MLAs Durga Bhumij from Doomdooma, Binanda Kumar Saikia from Sipahjhar and Bubul Das from Jagiroad (SC) constituency.
The Congress is a leading part of the unified opposition alliance, 'Asom Sonmilito Morcha', formed to challenge the ruling BJP, and has entered into seat-sharing arrangements with the Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) and the Left, but is yet to finalise it with Raijor Dal.
Presently, the ruling BJP's strength in the 126-member assembly is 64, while its allies AGP has nine MLAs, UPPL has seven and BPF has three members.
In the opposition camp, the Congress has 26 MLAs, AIUDF has 15 members and CPI(M) has one MLA. There is an Independent legislator as well.
