78 people were onboard Russian Aeroflot Sukhoi Superjet aircraft; 37 survived: Investigators
Aeroflot's Sukhoi Superjet aircraft caught fire during emergency landing at Moscow airport
Russian investigators said today that 78 people were onboard the Aeroflot Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft when it caught fire during emergency landing at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on Sunday.
"There were 78 people on board, including crew members," the Russian Investigative Committee said in a statement.
"According to updated information, 37 out of them survived," it added.
Forty-one people are believed to be dead as the Russian passenger plane made an emergency landing at Moscow's busiest airport and caught fire. Several passengers onboard the plane escaped through the plane's emergency slides that inflated after emergency landing went haywire.
The plane was flying from Moscow to northern Russian city of Murmansk.
A spokeswoman for the investigators confirmed the death toll was 41.
Another 11 people were injured, Dmitry Matveyev, the Moscow region's health minister said.
No official cause has been given for the disaster as yet.
The Investigative Committee said it had opened an investigation and was looking into whether the pilots had breached air safety rules.
President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev expressed their condolences and ordered investigators to establish what had happened.
The Sukhoi Superjet-100 was the first civilian aircraft developed in the country's post-Soviet era.