At least 40 killed after Russian plane on fire makes emergency landing in Moscow

Moscow, May 05: At least 40 people died on Sunday after a passenger plane on fire attempted an emergency landing at Moscow's busiest airport as flames and thick black smoke poured from the fuselage, Russian news agencies reported.

"For the moment, we confirm the death of 13 people, two of them children,' said a spokeswoman for the crash investigation team, Svetlana Petrenko, the agency reported.

Videos on social media show passengers using emergency exit slides to escape the aircraft. Other footage shows the plane landing while on fire and black smoke billowing from it on the tarmac.

It attempted an emergency landing but did not succeed the first time, and on the second time the landing gear hit (the ground), then the nose did, and it caught fire," a source told Interfax.

The agencies did not immediately say how many people were on board and TASS did not specify the number of injured. It said ambulances were sent to the scene of the landing and the passengers were evacuated.