The Interstate Aviation Committee announced Monday that the Red Wings plane crash that occurred on Saturday at Vnukovo Airport was not caused by the airport's runway.
According to the committee, the runway was checked immediately after the crash, and the traction coefficient measurement satisfied all requirements for the given type of aircraft, RIA-Novosti reported.
"The chairman of the Interstate Aviation Committee's technical commission on the Tu-204 RA-64047 crash at Vnukovo has reported that a visual inspection of the runway was carried out an hour and 20 minutes before the incident," the committee said in a statement.
The preliminary cause of the crash is reported to be pilot error, though the committee is still looking into other possible causes, including adverse weather conditions and technical malfunctions.
Five people were killed in the accident, which occurred Saturday morning when the plane overshot the runway on arrival and caught fire. Three more people remain in hospital in stable but serious condition.
Red Wings is reportedly continuing to carry out charter flights at this time despite the incident, Interfax reported. Another Tu-204 operated by Red Wings and arriving from Pardubice, the Czech Republic — the same city that the tragic flight was arriving from — landed at Vnukovo on Monday afternoon.
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