HEART-stopping video has emerged of how close motorists came to becoming victims of the deadly Moscow plane crash.

The incredible video shows how a casual weekend drive could have resulted in catastrophic consequences when a passenger airliner careered off the runway at Russia's third-busiest airport while landing, broke into three pieces and caught fire, killing at least five people.

The driver's camera captures the moment the plane crashes into the highway, and you can even make out one of the plane's wheels hurtling into another vehicle in front.

After a screeching of brakes and loud impact noise, the driver casually brings the car to a halt by the side of the road.

State television news channel Vesti showed a photo of the wrecked plane's fuselage with the livery of the low-cost Russian Red Wings airline. Its nose, including the cockpit area, appeared sheared off.

Russian investigators have blamed a defective brake system for the crash that killed five crew members.

Rescue workers recovered the flight recorders from the four-year-old Tu-204 of tycoon Alexander Lebedev's Red Wings airline late Saturday as Russia began mourning its latest post-Soviet crash fatalities.

"The plane touched down in the proper landing area but for some reason was unable to stop on the strip," Federal Air Transport Agency chief Alexander Neradko said in televised remarks.

"According to preliminary data, the pilots used all the brake systems available on the plane," an unidentified investigator told the Interfax news agency.

"But for some reason, the aircraft failed to stop and continued moving" down the runway. "Most likely, the cause was defective reverse engines or brakes."

Red Wings said a flight attendant died of her injuries yesterday, bringing the toll to five. Three others were recovering in a stable condition.

Greater loss of life was averted only because the 210-seat liner was empty except for the eight crew returning from a charter flight to the Czech Republic.

Mobile phone footage of the accident posted online showed chunks of debris hurtling over the highway and crashing into cars whose drivers had to swerve and make emergency stops.

The jet split into three pieces and required the temporary shutdown of both the Kiev Highway and Vnukovo - Moscow's third largest airport and the site of a special terminal for Kremlin officials.

Red Wings owner Alexander Lebedev - a billionaire famous for his critical view of the Kremlin and his ownership of the London Evening Standard and The Independent in Britain - said the jet had recently passed a meticulous check.

"Plane number 47 had accumulated 8500 flight hours and underwent its last thorough check on November 23," Mr Lebedev said on his Twitter feed.

He also suggested that traffic controllers' initial refusal to authorise landing - requiring the plane to complete several circles over Vnukovo in bad weather - may have been a contributing factor.

"All machinery has its limits, even when it is new," Mr Lebedev wrote.

Russian media said the authorities had concerns about the Tu-204 jet's ability to stop in various weather conditions even before Saturday's crash landing.

They cited a letter sent by the state aviation watchdog Rosaviatsya to the jet's maker on Friday asking about an incident last week in which the engines failed to fire into reverse on landing.

The manoeuvre is required for the plane to slow down quickly upon touchdown.

The russianplanes.net aviation website said the very same jet had suffered an engine failure and was forced to make an emergency landing in June 2009.

It said Mr Lebedev's airline had in fact decided not to order any more Tu-204 planes after the 2009 incident because of the engine problems.



Government officials believe the cause of the crash could be pilot error.

Witnesses said heavy gusts accompanying a light snowfall were swirling over the airport at the time the plane came in for landing on Saturday afternoon.

But on Sunday, a security source said investigators had brushed aside poor weather conditions or pilot error and were focusing on technical problems with the Tupolev as the most likely cause.

"According to preliminary information, the Vnukovo catastrophe may have been caused by problems with the plane, which became exposed in difficult weather conditions," the unnamed official told the Interfax news agency.

The Russian-made Tu-204 jet was flying in from Pardubice, in the Czech Republic after dropping off tourists and then returning to its home Moscow base with just crew on board.

Officials said there were eight people aboard the Tu-204 belonging to Russian airline Red Wings that was flying back from the Czech Republic without passengers to its home at Vnukovo Airport.

Emergency officials said in a televised news conference that four people were killed and another four severely injured when the plane rolled off the runway into a snowy field and partly onto an adjacent highway, then disintegrated.

Russian medics on Sunday began identifying the bodies.

Rescue workers recovered the flight recorders from the four-year-old Tu-204 late on Saturday as Russia began mourning its latest post-Soviet crash.

"The plane touched down in the proper landing area but for some reason was unable to stop on the strip," Federal Air Transport Agency chief Alexander Neradko said in televised remarks.

The plane's impact with the highway embankment sent the severed nose sliding over the icy road while the rest of the jet rested just past the airport's fence - its tail linked to the rest of the body by only a tangle of wreckage.

The plane's cockpit area was sheared off from the fuselage and a large chunk gashed out near the tail.

Russian state television showed live footage of rescuers climbing into the wreck with search lights as night fell over Moscow with the plane still blocking traffic on the busy Kiev Highway.

''According to updated information, four people were killed and four more were injured,'' the interior ministry said in a statement.

A health ministry official said the four survivors were being treated for head injuries at various Moscow hospitals.

The Interfax news agency said both pilots were among the dead.

The crash occurred amid light snow and winds gusting up to 15 metres a second, but other details were not immediately known.

A spokesman for Russia's top investigative agency, Vladimir Markin, said initial indications were that pilot error was the cause.

But Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said all possible causes were being explored, including pilot error, the weather or a technical malfunction.

Several state media outlets speculated only hours after the incident that something might be wrong with the brake system of the Tu-204 planes.

The state news agency RIA Novosti cited an unidentified official at the Russian Aviation Agency as saying another Red Wings Tu-204 had gone off the runway at the international airport in Novosibirsk in Siberia on December 20.

The agency said that incident, in which no one was injured, was due to the failure of the plane's engines to go into reverse upon landing and that its brake system malfunctioned.

On Friday, the Aviation Agency sent a directive to the Tupolev company's president calling for it to take urgent preventive measures.

They cited a letter sent by the state aviation security watchdog Rosaviatsya to the jet's Tupolev maker on Friday expressing concern over last week's incident.

The manoeuvre is required for the plane to slow down quickly upon touchdown.

Czech officials stressed that the plane was in fine working order when it landed at an airport 100kmeast of Prague earlier in the day.

Vnukovo airport spokeswoman Yelena Krylova said it had enough personnel and equipment to keep the runway fully functional on Saturday.

The airport resumed receiving planes after a break of several hours.

Prior to Saturday's crash, there had been no fatal accidents reported for Tu-204s, which entered commercial service in 1995.

The plane is a twin-engine midrange jet with a capacity of about 210 passengers.

Vnukovo, on the southern outskirts of Moscow, is one of the Russian capital's three international airports.

Red Wings - which serves destinations in Russia and abroad as well as offering charter flights - is owned by Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev whose assets also include the London Evening Standard and The Independent in Britain.

Red Wings owner Lebedev said the jet had passed a meticulous check in November.

"Plane number 47 had accumulated 8500 flight hours and underwent its last serious check on November 23," Lebedev tweeted.

He also suggested that traffic controllers' initial refusal to authorise landing - requiring the plane to complete several circles over Vnukovo - might have been a contributing factor.

"All machinery has its limits, even when it is new," Lebedev wrote.

Air safety in Russia is a major headache for the authorities following a severe deterioration in the quality of domestic services following the Soviet Union's collapse.

Officials blame most problems on pilot inexperience as well as poor maintenance by small and poorly regulated airlines that sprouted up across Russia in the past two decades.

The images of the stricken plane stranded on the motorway are a major embarrassment for Russia as it seeks to promote an image as a safe country ahead of its hosting of the 2014 Winter Olympics and 2018 World Cup.

The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin had been personally informed about the accident while Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev ordered an investigation into its causes.

The incident also risks causing travel chaos as Russians depart from the capital in hordes for the country's lengthy New Year holidays.

Flights were diverted for several hours to Moscow's two other major airports after the crash.

The accident came days after all 27 people on board a Kazakh military jet were killed in a crash in the south of the former Soviet Central Asian state.