Russia says it won't ground Sukhoi plane despite fatal crash-landing

Russia sees no reason to ground its domestically produced Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft despite one of the planes bursting into flames during a crash-landing and killing 41 people, the country’s transport minister said on Monday. The crash-landing Sunday is the latest serious setback for the plane, the first new passenger jet developed in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union, and threatens to undermine confidence in an airliner Moscow touts as proof it can produce its own high quality civil passenger aircraft. In a blow to the Russian aviation industry, regional carrier Yamal Airlines, the country’s second biggest operator of the Superjet after Aeroflot, said on Monday it was cancelling its planned purchase of 10 of the planes, the TASS news agency reported. It cited high servicing costs, not safety concerns. Investigators have started trying to piece together why the Aeroflot jet, which had been flying from Moscow to the northern Russian city of Murmansk on Sunday, was forced to make an emergency landing and why that landing went so badly wrong. Various versions are being looked into, including technical failure, human error, and bad weather conditions.<br/>