At least 137 people died when a Russian Airbus plane veered off a runway, slammed into a concrete wall and burst into flames while landing yesterday in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, officials said.
"Sixty-three people survived the crash ... There were 200 people on board," a spokesman for the Irkutsk section of the Emergency Situations Ministry said.
Eleven people walked away from the crash site and 52 others were hospitalized, he said, adding that 120 bodies have been recovered from the fuselage so far.
The S7 Airbus A-310 was carrying a crew of eight and 192 passengers on a flight from Moscow to Irkutsk. Many were children headed to nearby Lake Baikal on vacation, according to Russian news reports.
The plane veered off the runway on landing and tore through a 2m-high concrete barrier. It then crashed into a compound of one-story garages, stopping a short distance from some small houses.
A witness said he heard a bang and the ground trembled.
"I saw smoke coming from the aircraft. People were already walking out who were charred, injured, burnt," Mikhail Yegeryov told NTV television.
"I asked a person who was in the Airbus what happened, and he said the plane had landed on the tarmac but didn't brake. The cabin then burst into flames," Yegeryov said.
Transport Minister Igor Levitin blamed the wet runway. The crash occurred around 7:50am, apparently shortly after rain.
"The aircraft veered off the runway. There was rain, the landing strip was wet. So we'll have to check the clutch and the technical condition of the aircraft," he told Russian state TV.
The Prosecutor-General's Office said that investigators considered a technical fault or human error as the two most likely versions of the crash, news agencies reported. Airline official Alexander Zyubr said that the plane was in good technical condition, according to RIA-Novosti.
Irina Andrianova, a spokeswoman for the Emergency Situations Ministry, said it took firefighters more than two hours to put out the fire. There were two explosions caused by the fuel in the plane, Moscow radio reported.
Russian TV showed smoke rising from the wreckage and firefighters clambering on top.
"It was traveling at a terrific speed," the spokeswoman said.
She said the front end of the plane was crumpled in the crash.
Six people were in a critical condition, including a 10-year-old child, the medical emergencies center in Irkutsk was quoted as saying by RIA-Novosti.
President Vladimir Putin conveyed his condolences to friends and family of the victims, the Kremlin said.
Details began to emerge of the chaotic aftermath of the crash. One air stewardess, Viktoria Zilberstein, opened the emergency hatch in the rear of the aircraft and let a number of passengers out, said the ministry's regional branch.
Ten passengers managed to escape this way and other survivors, including a pilot, were rescued by firefighters and rescuers from the burning plane, ITAR-Tass reported.
The transport minister said the aircraft's two black boxes had been recovered and were being deciphered.
Levitin added that the pilot had radioed ground control to say the aircraft had landed safely and then communications were cut off.
Relatives began to arriving later yesterday at Moscow's Domodedovo airport, from where the plane took off.
Yesterday's disaster was the fourth air crash in Irkutsk in the past 12 years. S7 is Russia's second-largest airline. It was carved out of Aeroflot after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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