Russia's Federal Investigative Committee has brought charges against the pilot who crashed an Aeroflot SJ100 earlier this year. The emergency landing, which ruptured a fuel tank upon landing, killed 41 passengers and injured several more.

What happened?

As reported by Simple Flying back in June, Aeroflot flight 1492 on May 5th was en route from Moscow to Murmansk when it encountered a storm. The aircraft was struck by lightning and the captain decided to return the aircraft back to Moscow for inspection.

At first, it was believed that the aircraft was on fire upon its approach to land, but later reports discovered that the fire was caused by a bumpy landing. When the aircraft touched down, nose gear first, the G-force was measured to be the equivalent of 2.55g, causing a bounce to a height of around two meters. The proceeding landing back onto the runway opened the fuel lines and caused a myriad of sparks.

The resulting inferno consumed the rear of the plane and forced all passengers and crew to quickly escape. Unfortunately, 41 passengers were not so lucky and were killed in the incident.

The following video shows the crash; we warn readers that it might be distressing.

Those at the front of the plane were slow to exit (with some taking time to remove luggage) which meant more passengers may have died than necessary.

#SU1492 🚨— UPDATE: It is now reported that 2 children were among the 37 killed onboard #SU1492. 11 more people are receiving treatment in hospital. On the video passengers escape the plane with their luggage from the cabin, this will have held up the evacuation of the aircraft. pic.twitter.com/nMqGL5wO8E

— BREAKING NEWS: AVIATION (@lastestaviation) 6 May 2019

What is the latest with the investigation?

Deeper investigations have discovered that the pilots chose to ignore several warnings and what at first looks like a horrible accident was actually caused by human error. It is believed that the pilot of the aircraft had never actually flown it in Direct Mode, and was not equipped to deal with the situation when the autopilot was offline due to the lightning strike.

"To my knowledge, the commander of the aircraft Denis Evdokimov who has flown over 1,400 hours on SSJ-100 had never landed in Direct Mode (fully manually). They were landing normally, with a glide path but they pushed the nose down and increased the speed before landing. It was lucky that the front gear didn’t break. If that happened, the consequences would have been even worse.” - Aviation expert and former designer at Sukhoi Design Bureau, Vadim Lukashevich is reported to have told the Mail

According to the report, it was found that the pilot in charge was in error of:

• Choosing to fly when there was a storm in the area, or not changing course to avoid it. Other aircraft in the area requested permission to avoid the storms.
• Ignoring wind shear warnings when making the approach.
• Ignoring advice to go around.
• Not having the experience to operate the aircraft landing manually and flying it outside of the airport and aircraft limits.

Thus the Russian investigators have found plenty of evidence to charge the pilot in command of the flight with the deaths of those unfortunately killed. According to Flight Global, the pilot is 'being charged with a crime relating to breaches of air transport safety rules which, as a result of negligence, resulted in two or more fatalities.'

Sentencing will take place once the entire investigation is finished.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.