Forty-one people were killed when a plane made an emergency landing and caught fire at Moscow's main airport on Sunday (local time), Russian investigators have said.

Key points: TV footage shows the plane engulfed in flames and black smoke

TV footage shows the plane engulfed in flames and black smoke The Murmansk-bound aircraft had 73 passengers and five crew members on board

The Murmansk-bound aircraft had 73 passengers and five crew members on board It circled twice over Moscow before making an emergency landing after about 45 minutes

Video footage showed the Aeroflot passenger jet landing at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport, before the rear of the plane bounced twice on the tarmac and exploded into flames.

Other television broadcasts showed the plane spewing large clouds of black smoke as it careened along the runway.

Russia's Transportation Minister Yevgeny Dietrich confirmed 41 bodies had been recovered from the burned wreckage.

He also told reporters in a briefing on Monday six survivors had been hospitalised.

Two children were among the passengers who died, Russia's Investigative Committee said.

Loading

The airport said the aircraft — a Sukhoi Superjet-100 — had 73 passengers and five crew members on board.

Footage showed passengers leaping from the plane onto an inflatable emergency slide at the front of the aircraft.

Passengers then staggered across the tarmac and grass at the airport, some of them carrying luggage.

Passenger blames lightning strike

Russia's main investigative body said both flight recorders have been recovered from the plane.

Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said investigators were looking at three main possible causes for the disaster: insufficient pilot qualifications, equipment failure and weather.

Investigators and the airport said the plane had taken off for the northern city of Murmansk, but turned back because of unspecified technical problems.

Some passengers blamed bad weather and lightning.

"We took off and then lightning struck the plane," the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily cited one surviving passenger, Pyotr Egorov, as saying.

"The plane turned back and there was a hard landing.

"We were so scared, we almost lost consciousness.

"The plane jumped down the landing strip like a grasshopper and then caught fire on the ground."

The charred remains of the Aeroflot Airlines plane after emergency services extinguished the deadly fire. ( AP: Alexander Zemlianichenko )

While some Russian news reports initially cited sources as saying the plane caught fire mid-air, the airport said in a statement that it was the hard landing that started the fire.

Russian investigators said they were looking into whether the pilots had breached air safety rules.

"Investigators soon will begin interviewing victims, eyewitnesses, airport staff and the airline carrier, as well as other persons responsible for the operation of the aircraft," Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said.

The remains of the plane covered in fire retardant foam. ( AP: Moscow News Agency )

The Interfax news agency reported that a rescue team was combing through the charred wreckage of the rear of the plane looking for survivors.

The Flightradar24 tracking service showed that the plane had circled twice over Moscow before making an emergency landing after about 45 minutes.

Questionable record

Aeroflot has far from a clean slate when it comes fatalities, though it has vastly improved its safety record in recent years.

Officials said the plane erupted in fire after a hard landing. ( AP: @artempetrovich/Instagram )

More than 8,231 passengers have died in Aeroflot crashes — that's more than any other airlines, according to a report in the UK Telegraph last year.

A far-off second is Air France, with 1,783 fatalities — more than 6,000 fewer than Aeroflot.

The 1970s marked a tragic time for Aeroflot passengers, with 27 incidents in 1973, killing 780 people.

There were another 21 fatal crashes in 1974, 19 in 1975 and 33 in 1976. They had 721 incidents in 44 years.

The Telegraph aslo reported that in 1994, a pilot sat his young son by the flight controls. The child then accidentally switched off autopilot, nosediving the plane and killing 75 people.

Reuters/AP

