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Bodies of SSJ-100 crash victims taken to Murmansk

On May 5, the plane with 73 passengers and five crewmembers onboard, bound for Murmansk, returned to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo 30 minutes after the takeoff to catch fire while crash landing

MOSCOW, May 20. /TASS/. The bodies of the Murmansk region residents who died in the plane crash at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport in early May have been brought to Murmansk by a Russian emergencies ministry’s Ilyushin-76 plane, a source at the Murmansk airport told TASS on Monday.

"The plane with the bodies of those killed in the crash arrived in Murmansk at 14:05 Moscow time," the source said.

On May 5, an Aeroflot Sukhoi Superjet 100 passenger plane (flight SU1492) with 73 passengers and five crewmembers onboard that was bound for Murmansk returned to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo 30 minutes after the takeoff to catch fire while crash landing.

Forty-one people died, ten more were taken to hospital.

A criminal case was opened after the accident on charges of violating flight safety rules entailing the death of two or more people. Investigators are looking at several theories of the crash, including pilot’s insufficient skills, a technical malfunction and unfavorable weather conditions.

A source familiar with the situation told TASS the investigators suspected the pilots might have lacked the skill of Direct Mode landing they had to resort to after a lightning strike upset the automatic control systems.