A plane crash at an airport in Russia left four dead on Saturday.
A Red Wings Tu-204 airliner slid off the runway at Russia's Vnukovo International Airport and crashed onto a highway outside of Moscow. The plane broke in pieces and caught on fire. Four of the 12 people on board were killed, The Guardian reports.
The plane was on its way back from the Czech Republic and was only carrying crew members. Four others were severely injured in the crash.
The plane split into three pieces as the cockpit was cut off from the fuselage and the tail section was partially torn away.
"We saw how the plane skidded off the runway ... The nose, where business class is, broke off and a man fell out," a witness, who gave his name as Alexei, said, according to The Guardian. "We helped him get into a minibus to take him to the hospital."
Weather may have played a big factor in the crash as the plane rolled off the runway and into a snowy field and highway. The plane was facing snow and 30 mph winds when it crashed. However investigators believe pilot error was the cause of the crash.
Just a few days earlier another Red Wings Tu-204 went off the runway at an airport in Siberia. No one was injured in that incident and it was caused by a malfunctioning brake system and engine that wouldn't go into reverse.
According to Jan Anderlik, the director of the company that operates the Pardubice airport in the Czech Republic, where the recent plane that crashed took off from, said the plane just had a check before takeoff and no problems were found.
Tu-204's entered the airline industry in 1995 and there were no reported fatal accidents involving one until now. The plane is capable of holding 210 passengers, but there were no passengers on the flight that crashed.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
