Moscow plane crash: hero steward died helping passengers escape as calls mount for Sukhoi Superjet 100 to be banned
A 22-year-old steward who gave his life helping passengers escape was among the heroes of an airliner’s fiery emergency landing in Moscow on Sunday, which killed 41 of the 78 people on board.
Meanwhile, thousands have signed a petition to ban the Russian-made Sukhoi Superjet 100 involved in the tragedy.
Social media posts have called for the flight crew of the Aeroflot flight to Murmansk to be given medals for landing and evacuating the plane after it was reportedly struck by lightning minutes after takeoff, knocking out its electronics.
Dmitry Khlebnikov, a passenger seated in the 10th row, later told journalists at Sheremetyevo airport that he was only alive thanks to the crew.
“Thank you to the stewardesses, they saved me,” he said. “The girls were standing near us. In the area where there was fuel, where it was dark, where the temperature was the highest, they brought people out of there and helped them get down the slide.”
Fully loaded with fuel, the aircraft bounced and then struck the ground with its tail on landing, becoming engulfed in flames as it screamed down the runway.
Among those who didn’t make it down the evacuation slides were at least two children.
Steward Maxim Moiseyev was located near the heart of the inferno in the rear of the plane. When he could not open the door there, the 22-year-old began assisting passengers toward the evacuation slides on the front doors, state news agency TASS reported.
He refused to leave while passengers were still on board and died in the fire, it said.
Mr Moiseyev had reportedly dreamed of working in aviation. After completing military academy and serving in the army, he passed a correspondence course in civil aviation. He had worked only 15 months as a steward before the fire.
Videos from inside the plane showed passengers screaming and crying as the fire spreads.
“Everyone to the exit!” one man shouted as the aircraft careened down the runway in flames.
The investigative committee said it was considering three possible causes of the tragedy: poor training of the plane crew and ground personnel, technical malfunction or bad weather.
The plane’s commander Denis Yevdokimov told media that lightning had knocked out radio and electronic guidance systems, forcing pilots to fly the aircraft by hand.
“We took off and flew into a cloud, it was hailing heavily. At that moment there was a bang, this kind of flash, like electricity. It all happened very quickly,” stewardess Tatyana Kasatkina told state television.
As of Monday afternoon, more than 4,000 people had supported an online petition calling for Russia to stop flying Superjets following eight safety incidents in the past year.
But the transport minister, who heads the commission investigating the crash, said for now he didn’t see any reason to stop Superjet flights. The emergencies ministry said it would not ground the plane, and Aeroflot has more Moscow-Murmansk flights scheduled later this week.
Developed in 2011 by the storied fighter jet producer Sukhoi with government support and consultation from Boeing, the Superjet was Russia’s attempt to break into the civilian aircraft market. Some 150 have been sold.
The only other fatal accident involving this aircraft occurred in 2012 when the pilot flew into a mountain during a demonstration flight in Indonesia, killing 45.
But Mexico’s Interjet grounded 15 of its 22 Superjets this year, complaining that the plane’s engine, produced by a joint venture between French and Russian companies, needed to be fixed too often.
Russia’s rapidly growing air industry has a long history of crashes, often due to pilot error or fatigue, and flying in the country is four times more dangerous as the world average.
Well-known newspaper columnist Maxim Kononenko called Sunday’s accident the “last nail in the coffin of the Superjet”.
One account claimed that passengers’ attempts to retrieve their hand luggage from the overhead bins prevented others from escaping.
“This complicated the evacuation of people from the back rows, and they died in the fire,” Interfax news agency quoted a source as saying.
American citizen Jeremy Hinton Brooks, who had arrived in Moscow from Los Angeles, was among those killed, Russian media reported.
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