join me every thursday on the alex simon sure and i'll be speaking to the world of politics. i'm sure i'll see you then. to our. breaking news here on our national forty one people have been confirmed dead including at least three children after a plane burst into flames during an emergency landing in moscow. the fate of the remaining passengers and crew is at this point clear. this is investigative

committees launched a criminal probe into the instance but the russian president and prime minister have expressed condolences to the families of the. israeli prime minister vows to carry on a campaign of as strikes targeting positions in gaza as a major flare up of cross border violence has continued for a second day. in this weather and russia foreign ministers have discussed u.s. threats of military force after an attempted coup by the opposition leader.

thanks for joining us this is r.t. international we start this hour with breaking news story because investigators have now confirmed forty one people have died in a runway fire at moscow's biggest airport now this incident happened about seven hours ago when an aircraft burst into flames during an emergency landing at sheremetyevo airport there were seventy eight passengers and crew all together on board we can show you some video of the plane engulfed in flames on the runway must warn you though you may find these images disturbing. if keep.

the feel. like it down yeah. of. course once it is done a spin bringing is the latest information from sheremetyevo airport and it is sad late but it was almost predictable looking at those who reflect images those huge flames engulfing that plane the death toll has gone up the spring is the latest information you're getting from officials. well indeed at least at least now officials have started to come out to the media and well revealing some details as to what happened indeed we finally have a confirmation of the official number of those who lost their lives in the tragedy

in fact we journalists have just been given out lists of people lists of survivors this is what one looks like so far it's just numbers and russian names over there and judging by what i can see here at least twenty eight people have survived and they have been largely unharmed and five more people have been taken to hospital also as the total number is thirty three thirty three people according to this list alive and well twenty eight of them well and. five receiving medical treatment also looking at the least looking at the list i can say that at least four families are among those who have survived this tragedy this crash landing now when it comes to what happened on board his the understanding of the timeline that we have so far the sukhoi superjet operated by russia's air flight company took off

and shortly afterwards apparently was hit by a lightning strike now this information we're getting from two sources a unconfirmed reports attributing this information to the flight crew and two we spoke with one of the passengers who does seem to recall a bright white flash as they were taking off and after that apparently the crew decided to turn around and land back in the sheremetyevo airport now it is important that apparently the pilots lost all communications apparently that lightning strike did send all communications offline so the pilots had no absolutely no contact with the ground also mind that everything was everything happened within thirty to forty minutes since takeoff which means that the fuel tanks of the plane were full and the mordant planes they're just not designed to land while still having on fuel normally the routine would be to just circle around

around the city or the airport and just to burn out the fuel why that white why didn't the crew do that well one of the versions is because they lost contact with the ground so they were going down blinded so they had no directions from the dispatchers on the ground so the aircraft hit the ground at least twice and on this and it was going at high speed probably that's why it couldn't land from the first strike and on the second try and the shaft is apparently penetrated the fuel tanks and remember. lots of fuel there lots of stuff to burn so the plane was caught a blaze now that's and the pictures of the aircraft rolling through the tarmac whole tale of it's set ablaze now we talked to one of the eyewitnesses one of the eyewitnesses a few ike i witness as i should say who saw the tragedy unfold here's what they told us. it was quite unexpected we had

a flight to you catherine went to the gate a little earlier so as not to be laying so we certainly are the window i just turned my head and all of a sudden i saw the burning plane with huge plumes of black smoke fire fighters arrived at the scene within two minutes they started fighting the fire they didn't show signs of panic as the plane was too close to those that were waiting on the runways we didn't know it was landing it looked like it was just fifty meters from the nearest aircraft. but. this plane was landing engulfed in a terrible fire firefighters were quickly on the scene but i couldn't see being evacuated from where i was in the terminal. so. while the representatives of the airline have revealed that apparently the evacuation was done well under the protocol time it was done in about fifty five seconds while the standard the acceptable time is about ninety seconds now as i was saying some officials have been coming out let's listen to what the investigative

committee had to say. the rescue operation has ended and the investigative committee is continuing to work at the scene of the accident so this is the chairman and portraits poorness with play all of the injured received emitted medical assistance of seventy eight passengers and crew onboard thirty seven survived and forty one have died. now when it comes to the place where i am right now because this is the show me to the airport and just take a look behind me all you can see is is russia's police and in fact the people that are leaving right now they are the members of russia's emergency crews and also apparently some of the relatives because this is the this is like an exclusive entrance and exit for the relatives and the families and the friends of those who were on board also some of the passengers of course no way of knowing who these people are relatives or friends or passengers so this airport has been largely shut

down only one emergency runway is operational so lots of flights have been inbound to this airport have been redirected and not just to the two three other school airports who have of course been trying to help out and to take some of the load but of course the there's no way they could take all of the end bound flights so lots of them had to make their landings in other cities of russia like serato voysey petersburg and also even abroad for instance the city of minsk the capital of belarus and helsinki in finland now also some of the ambulances a still outside of this terminal and they are ready to provide their services to any person who might need those and having spoken to some of the to at least one of the friends of those who were on board also inside the terminal over there the emergency the emergency ministers workers like psychologists they are working to

help all relatives and friends to cope with what happened today. as he's done a bring is the very latest information on location there at sheremetyevo airport thank you. and just get more information about the particular plane we're talking about here is a sukhoi superjet one hundred a short to medium or passenger plane the aircraft that caught fire was built in two thousand and seventeen it has the capacity to carry up to ninety eight passengers just below the full capacity the range is up to four thousand six hundred kilometers for this model of plane one hundred ninety six of these the same model are currently in service with various different lines. a spring to get to speak to nationally dean mission and engineering professor an aviation safety expert at the university of southern california appreciate you coming on to speak to us lots of information to. analyze i think the one thing

though that surprised a lot of the guests i've spoken to this evening reports including an eyewitness report of a lightning strike being the initial cause of certainly at least the loss of communication with air traffic control possibly more does that surprise you that the plane wasn't able to withstand that it's at that lightning strike. good evening again because my condo insists. typically it is type of. systems that they could basically stand there lightening strike and that. surprises me on the because writing a strike is something quite these trains are designed to withstand what what i have heard based on the initial law report of course it's too early to make any judgement is the way that their plane lost communication and also may have lost control that tells me that there may be some like a common cause failure i don't necessarily attribute to the lightning strike at

this time but. loss of communication the loss of control and the fire that they had on wants to check that news apparently one of the passengers report to. one of the things on fire that's why they asked for. and they came for emergencies and. again lots of unconfirmed information coming in but among get that within a few minutes of takeoff that the aircraft despite having lost control as i understand they still can send a signal via this transponder it is called like some very basic information it can be communicated and at first it transmitted this school because they call it that the plane had lost radio communication and they then changed to we have an emergency situation now just how bad is it when it signaling emergency situation what kind of scenarios cannot cover. that is a scenario that they need to immediately come back for landing because they have

some things like a fire on board or a loss of control again all of this in a show indications that lead me to think that there was a common prosperity or because when they came for lengthy they had their heartland and they couldn't use the first try meaning that they may have lost some of their country. because. again they lost touch control of several of their subsystems and we've heard officials say that the fire that we've seen on the video which is when the plane has actually landed on the tarmac that that was the result of a very heavy landing i've personally seen some unverified video that does seem to corroborate that of a plane landing very heavily bounces and on the second impact then you see a burst of flame who don't know if there was already some kind of forum for that so that's a very possible but so that suggests that there was serious problems on the plane perhaps that contribution to such

a heavy landing. richard wright more stronger today at ross console up some hard on the console. maybe it's right. they didn't have control of stat that remember reminds me of a similar type of fare but of course the root cause of that bus accident. accident that you had in sioux city iowa that then their captain al haynes didn't have control of the train and they had to bring it to very skillfully to some sort of a hard landing but of course they didn't have much sure she'll land very able to save a lot of number of passengers at those really escapes where the pilot was able to land creeper the aircraft and in this particular case i think maybe the pilots very heroic act rather than crashing they came for the heartland it may have been maybe the best they could do under the circumstances in

a situation like this and i guess everyone's different but i heard mention of sometimes the plane might try to jettison some of the fuel if they got a full load or feel having just taken off is that down to the individual pilots as to whether that's the right thing to do or not. did typically each day have time to try to dump the fuel and come back for people in this particular case i think they didn't have time at the party the type to make a decision last minute to crack down for langley. as it happens in type of aircraft accidents pilots are really last layer after sense of protection of the people and i think the pilots in this case. may day how do the. larger people otherwise it would have been a total loss of life and i mean it breaks my heart to say this but it almost looks like this was a tragic loss three we saw people getting off the front of the plane within seconds

of landing and from the reports we're getting dozens of them of are the most almost unscathed and yet presumably these are the people at the back of this plane that was engulfed in flames many of them perished it seems like the aviation fuel judging by the videos played a huge part in this just how nasty as they stuff is it seems like it was streaming back onto the back half of the plane which as i understand it isn't really equipped to withstand those temperatures i think at that level of fuel got to heat level and it's an internal it's very hard to do science to stand up for people are . using trial the charge instead of at that level that was a. big load of fuel and when i look at the size of the flames well it's a huge internal so sorry. two. people that lost their lives i think of that situation particularly looking at the profile and. i

think i listed in order to say. well what was left from the plane control. i think there are huge. what was the reason that some thirty seven code you treat people well to live and then mention i really want to mention that the flight crew because you know we often see these safety procedures explained to us when we get on board a plane and this is when they matter this is when the life or death and by all accounts it was about fifty five seconds the time from starting the emergency departure procedure to get everybody off the plane to actually get them off was remarkably quick and we saw people get out unharmed by all accounts. that seems incredible to have got people off in these circumstances so fast i think that is what i said. i lost sort of the first and last layer of some protection that

shows that i don't think that they were able to evacuate aircraft. or situation that means the most formidable group very trained and they did their job during emergency evacuation and i presume experience of the cabin crew is very important and also that just every second counts absolutely i mean this particular case very very. day mystic ation and cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder revealed. plans that were lost all their control which again mean my. common mode failure lost communication. and they had to come down for the heartland . but i'm very glad that at least they're. going to reduce their print to landing if it was an argument pilot lesser then we would have lost. and as we didn't really appreciate you coming on and it's been very

interesting to get your analysis insights into this of so thanks again and as we do mr carty is my guest professor of engineering and aviation safety at the university of southern california. ok becoming this story throughout the evening here in the russian capital do stay with r.t. international and of course information available also on our website r.t. dot com. ok let's bring you some today's other news stories israeli air strikes on the gaza strip of now killed twenty three people that's according to palestinian media reports now this is israel as claimed four of its civilians died following a massive barrage of rockets fired from palestinian territory the sudden spike in violence between the two neighboring states the scene two days of missiles exchanged.

the impact of the windows from the explosion took place from outside. the the floor as a result of the explosion. of the i.d.f. also claims a prominent hamas leader was killed as a result of an airstrike a skull was reportedly hit by a rocket and attack that also claimed a number of other lives blames the i.d.f. for killing two pregnant women and a toddler to leave denies the claims but the sudden escalation in violence between the states is what locals from both sides have had to say about the flare up. that

there was a lot of bombing in the neighborhood to work back to a lot of this street scene was indescribable people were afraid and terrified and run in and everyone was looking for their children nobody was able to see others and after the first truck it hit everyone started screaming children and adults when the building collapsed nobody was able to see one another. and learn to leave it to those bigger than me to the generals that know the situation to do what they know you know we can do is to cross our fingers and that they will succeed i mean we're not call many more we do trust the army we do hope benjamin netanyahu will take care of it but we are really worried from the rockets. the bombardment of rockets from the gaza strip began on saturday morning several residential areas were hit mostly in the south of israel multiple sites in palestine with them targeted in retaliatory strikes as more details. his radius strikes continue to bombard gaza the israelis say that they targeting hamas and islamic jihad targets

that among the offices that has been hit was the headquarters belonging to the turkish state run media agency now the turkish president added one has slammed the incident and no doubt this will increase tensions between israel and turkey at the same time israel has resumed its policy of targeted assassinations killing the person responsible in the gaza strip for distributing the radian funds that are the native to gaza this comes as israel saw on sunday its deadliest day in terms of casualties since the last israel gaza war back in two thousand and fourteen the south of the country is in a state of high lives businesses and schools will remain closed on monday and ways it is have been ordered to remain inside the bomb shelters here in tel aviv where i am with to some eighty kilometers to the north the municipality has open public bomb shelters and this comes as hamas creighton's that if israel doesn't stop what

it says is its aggression it will target tel aviv in the coming hours now we do expect to see some kind of mediation efforts conducted by egypt in the coming hours this comes as israel stops all fuel supplies to the gaza strip now this will have a diary flicked on electricity inside the gaza don't forget that on monday morning the holy month of ramadan begins and for gazans this is reminiscent of the last gaza wall which saw a large pot of the wall happening during the month of ramadan on sunday night an israeli security cabinet meeting wrapped up with the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu telling the i.d.f. soldiers to keep up their attacks. this morning i instructed the i.d.f. to continue in terms of turning against terror targets in the gaza strip and to experiment its presence surrounding the gaza strip with a. forces artillery and troops we are operating and we will continue to do so to

restore peace and security to residents in the south of the country and all of this common aids on the fourteenth of may with the euro vision song face the whole way some twenty thousand tourists are expected to arrive in the country the festival will be held here in tel aviv so every very tense situation here on both sides of the border coming as the united nations envoy to the region just calm and cause on both sides to lay down. i condemn the continuing to give look at street gaza enough palestinian israeli lives have been lost people injured houses damaged and destroyed it is time to deescalate and return to the understanding that the past few months before it's too late journalists. political analyst mitchell barak it was their views on the latest escalation between israel and gaza. both the hamas and islamic jihad are are excellent in using human shields you know launching their

operations from schools and from apartment buildings and from civilian centers and hoping that the israelis will not retaliate or that the israelis will be concerned with possible civilian casualties every civilian casualty is certainly a tragedy but the state of israel has to protect its citizens and has to protect its borders and for that some very very serious measures are being taken against the military infrastructure in gaza the government of gaza is the hamas it's a terror organization it's defined as a terror organization by both the united by both the european union and united states and against a terror organization everything goes so they keep testing israel along the way how many rockets can they fire how many civilian israelis can be killed before israel does something but israel has fully clean hands in this endeavor and will continue to pummel gaza and to destroy any terrorist infrastructure hopefully no civilians

will be killed in the process but israel is protecting its population this is something that is. intensely and drab and lee in the region of the time being and this could in large into a larger scale. attack by israel is and intensity of will be seen between the two sides but you know is that israeli israeli air strikes and israeli attacks on the gaza strip have been used to be march more intense much more brutal a much more rustiness against the palestinians israel has the most sophisticated army and the words the more sophisticated weaponry pinpoint attacks being carried out by israel for the time being and israel you. this is a very sophisticated technology military technology to attack palestinians the

casualties among palestinians are very high and the palestinians are paying a very high price for. an israeli tank shelling against gaza that is ongoing so there is some kind of this proportionate disproportionate. scale there's a proportionate scale of attacks by palestinians and israelis. back to the tragedy that is occurred today at moscow's biggest airport forty one people have now been confirmed dead after a runway fire at sheremetyevo ports that several hours ago there were seventy eight passengers and crew all together on board this particular plane which burst into flames during an emergency landing this was around half an hour after it had taken off we'll show you video now of the plane when it was on fire on the room where must warn you might find these pictures disturbing.

the first. to get out. of the play involved in this accident was a sukhoi superjet operated by aeroflot to stress the nation was more a month sc in the far north of russia but soon after takeoff the crew sent

a distress signal and then communication with traffic control was lost the crew made an emergency landing in town but the plane struck the runway. several times reportedly damaging fuel tanks and we believe that's what caused the fire in the back half of the plane there are thirty seven confirmed survivors from this incident but many are being treated for burn and smoke inhalation injuries investigators have launched a criminal probe into possible safety violations. venezuelan and russian foreign ministers met today and discussed u.s. threats to use military force that's after an attempted coup by the country's opposition leader one gado had failed those diplomats said the only way out of the crisis was through dialogue not force. we and our venezuelan partners agree that any use of force circumventing the un charter and the un security council may have catastrophic consequences for the entire structure of modern global security as any

nation venezuelans themselves could only decide their own fate through peaceful dialogue within the scope of the cause to choose should this was another attempt at violence by the venezuelan opposition president nicolas maduro insists that dialogue remains the only option unlike those who voiced the u.s. position which says all options are on the table who believe the only way is to respect the u.n. charter preserve peace in venezuela and not violent or forceful overthrow of the regime it was a minister in the meeting comes at a venezuela was rocked by violent protests this week in which more than one hundred people were injured president nicolas maduro said an attempted coup by opposition leader one guy doe was put down on tuesday go i don't know who claims to be venezuela's legitimate president and as the final phase of ending the duros rule and he called on the people to rise up against the government. again this today brave soldiers and brave have training and

a grave people are following our constitution.