On Sunday, an Aeroflot plane booked for a 2-hour domestic flight made an emergency landing in Moscow right after takeoff, and caught fire.
Authorities are still investigating the causes of the crash that killed 41 people, but they have already said that the number of victims would have been smaller had there been fewer delays in getting the passengers down the inflatable slide and out of harm’s way.
The Sukhoi Superjet-100 had taken off from Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, bound for Murmansk. Minutes later, it attempted to make an emergency landing, bouncing on the tarmac until it caught fire. When it stopped, 2 inflatable slides were deployed at the front of the plane and passengers started coming out of it, running to safety.
Among them was Dmitry Khlebushkin, a man who is now the target of ire online, after it was revealed that only 3 passengers that sat behind him in the cabin escaped. Khlebushkin, it seems, blocked others from getting out by stalling to remove his luggage and sliding with it down the slide, News.com.au notes, citing reports on Russian aviation forums.
Furthermore, Khlebushkin enraged everyone when he spoke to the media 40 minutes after the crash, only to complain that he had asked for a refund and still hadn’t received it. Considering that he was leaving the airport unharmed and with his carry-on, and 41 other people had not survived, his comment was callous, at best.
“I failed to get a refund for my ticket for 40 minutes,” he told the media, complaining that Aeroflot people were “heartless and unprofessional” for not considering his demand. “And in the end I did not get it at all.”
Images from the airport show him carry a backpack, but it is unknown if he picked it up from the overhead compartment or off the floor, from under the seat. Still, the issue of people getting their luggage down the slides did cause delays in the rescue operation. “What is really concerning here is if you look at the vision, you can see them carrying their bags … and there’s passengers inside taking videos,” aviation writer and author of Airline Ratings, Geoffrey Thomas, says, as cited by the same media outlet. “Clearly, this is another situation where passengers getting their bags off, instead of just getting off the airplane, has tragically caused… people to lose their lives.”
Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends. Full profile
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