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Interstate Aviation Committee to release interim report on Sheremetyevo plane crash

The report will be ready by the end of May

MOSCOW, May 15. /TASS/. Experts from the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) are still working with the black boxes of the Sukhoi Superjet that burned at Sheremetyevo Airport. The interim report will be ready by late May, a source in the IAC told TASS.

"The work with [the information received from the black boxes] continues. The information is being analyzed," he said, reiterating that the flight recorder was damaged. "The preliminary information on the disaster with the detailed analysis of the actions of the crew, the land services and the controllers will be released by late May in an interim report," the source said.

On May 5, a Sukhoi Superjet 100 en route to Murmansk crash-landed at Sheremetyevo Airport and burst into flames. There were 73 passengers and five crewmembers on board the plane. The tragedy claimed 41 lives. Based on this fact, a criminal case was launched under Part 3 Section 263 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Violation of safety and operational rules for aircraft which led to the death of two or more people out of negligence"). The major leads of the investigators are the pilots’ incompetence, a technical failure and unfavorable weather conditions.

A source with knowledge of the situation earlier told TASS that a lead is being studied that the pilots lacked the necessary qualification to land the plane in a direct mode regime following a system failure caused by a lightning strike.