Investigators worked on Monday to determine what caused an Airbus plane to overrun the runway and crash in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, as Russia marked a day of mourning for about 130 people killed in the accident.
Transport Minister Igor Levitin chaired a meeting of a commission set up to investigate the cause of the accident and told reporters here afterwards that so far 122 bodies had been recovered and six were still unaccounted for while 57 people were being treated in hospital for injuries.
The crash of the Airbus A310 occurred on Sunday when the plane on a flight from Moscow landed at the Irkutsk airport but failed to slow down sufficiently and careered off the end of the runway, ramming into a building and bursting into flames.
The plane’s flight data and voice recorders were sent to Moscow for analysis and investigating officials were quoted in Russian media as saying that a problem with the braking system or human error were among potential causes of the wreck they would be looking at.
An unnamed airline source quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency however said any theories on what caused the plane to crash that were leaked before the flight recorders had been thoroughly analysed were premature.
The source said the plane was piloted by two veterans who had logged many hours in the air and had no record of mishaps.
Obtaining a precise figure for dead and injured was complicated by the fact that various officials gave varying numbers for how many people were onboard the plane and some passengers that survived appeared to have left the scene of the accident altogether.
Most accounts however put the number of bodies recovered so far at 122 and the numbers of victims still unaccounted for was between six and nine, putting the current death toll from the accident at between 128 and 131.
President Vladimir Putin declared on Monday a national day of mourning and flags throughout Russia were ordered flown at half staff while public entertainment events were cancelled, media reports said.
The company that operated the flight, S7 Airlines — until recently known as Sibir — promised to fly families of those aboard the ill-fated flight from Moscow to Irkutsk to identify remains or comfort survivors, but those flights were delayed due to weather conditions in Irkutsk, media said.
Russia’s Vesti 24-hour news channel broadcast images of the crash on Sunday that were recorded on a cellphone and that showed flames and thick black smoke billowing from the fuselage.
”It was terrifying. People were shouting. People were on fire. I saw people on fire. Then I jumped out,” said Margarita Svetlova, a young survivor interviewed on Russia’s Channel One television station.
One witness said he saw survivors clambering out onto the plane’s wing and walking from the scene, many of them suffering burns. – AFP
