A Russian passenger plane plummeted to the ground and killed all three people on board just three hours after it had undergone repair work.
The Sukhoi Superjet 100, which belongs to the Gazpromavia airline and serves energy giant Gazprom, crashed in a forest around 65 miles south-east of Moscow today.
Captain Yevgeniy Bulavko, 53, co-pilot Maxim Lukmanov and flight attendant Vladislav Kharlamov were the only ones on the plane when it came down.
It had taken off from Lukhovitsy airfield and was bound for Vnukovo, which is one of Moscow’s major air hubs.
But the pilot issued a distress call and the aircraft was circling to burn fuel ahead of an intended emergency landing.
He is also believed to have diverted the aircraft away from built up areas in the villages of Apraksino and Maloe Karasevo before it smashed into woodland.
The plane, which disappeared from radar screens at around 3pm local time (1pm UK time), had scheduled maintenance work carried out shortly before take off and is understood to have been on a test flight.
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Footage filmed by eyewitnesses showed the plane flying low but relatively steadily before the crash happened.
A thick, black plume of smoke could be seen billowing into the sky after the impact.
Images from the scene show the aircraft had been largely obliterated and burnt out.
The reason for the crew’s mayday signal has not yet been disclosed, however a criminal case has been opened in relation to the crash.
Superjets are widely used in Russia, but have become vulnerable due to sanctions preventing the supply of Western parts.
Vladimir Putin does not use the planes himself but has been seeking to expand use of a new Superjet based entirely on Russian-made parts.
There have been several safety incidents during the period of the war against Ukraine when Western sanctions have been imposed.
Previously, the aircraft involved, which took its first flight in December 2014 and had been in service with Gazpromavia since March 2015, was used on routes to Siberia.
It was manufactured by the Gagarin Aviation Plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur.
This specific type of aircraft has been involved in two major crashes before.
In May 2019, 41 out of 78 people on board were killed after a Sukhoi Superjet 100 was struck by lightning shortly after takeoff from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.
The plane, suffering electrical failure, returned to the airport and bounced on the runway causing a fire.
A long court case blamed the captain for the scale of the losses.
And back in May 2012, the same model crashed into Mount Salak in Indonesia during a promotional tour.
All 45 people on board, including crew and prospective clients, died in the crash, which was also blamed on pilot error.
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