The survivors of a horrific airline disaster that left dozens dead when a Russian passenger jet burst into flames on landing say the aircraft was struck by lightning.

Pilot Denis Yevdokimov made the shocking revelation as investigators continue to determine the official cause of the fiery crash landing that killed 41 of the 78 people on board.

Mr Yevdokimov said he switched the Sukhoi Superjet-100 plane to emergency control mode after losing radio communications due to a lightning strike. 

Speaking to the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, Mr Yevdokimov did not specify if the plane was struck directly.

“We managed to restore communication through the emergency frequency on our radio connection. But the link was only for a short time and kept cutting out … It was possible to say only a few words,” he said.

State TV quoted flight attendant Tatiana Kasatnika as saying “We took off, got into a cloud, there was strong hail, and at that moment there was a pop and some kind of flash, like electricity”.

Investigators have started trying to piece together why the Aeroflot jet, which had been flying from Moscow to the northern Russian city of Murmansk, was forced to make an emergency landing and why that landing went so badly wrong.

Survivor Pyotr Yegorov said the Russian jet was hit by lightning shortly after take-off.

“The landing was rough – I almost passed out from fear,” he told the BBC.

Another witness said the plane “jumped like a grasshopper” as it skidded down the runway at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport.

Ничего себе он закозлил… Ад pic.twitter.com/WM2Ky9RrDH

— Ruslan Leviev (@RuslanLeviev) May 5, 2019

Heroic actions

Passenger Dmitry Khlebushkin praised the heriocs of the plane’s flight attendants.

“I’m alive only thanks to the stewardesses,” he said.

“The girls stood there in the smoke, it was dark, extremely hot, but they pulled people out and helped them get down the chutes.”

While the plane was still travelling, Ms Kasatkina said passengers were heading for the exits and even phoning relatives as the plane burned.

“It all happened really fast, in a matter of seconds… I was pushing passengers out. I grabbed each one by the collar, so that they wouldn’t delay the evacuation,” she told Russian news site Lenta.

Asked by reporters if the Sukhoi planes should now be grounded pending the outcome of an investigation, Russia’s transport minister Yevgeny Ditrikh said “there are no grounds for that”.

Both flight recorders have been recovered from the plane.

Russian Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko was quoted by Russian news agencies on Monday as saying investigators are looking into three main possibilities behind the cause of the disaster – insufficient pilot qualifications, equipment failure, and weather.

Video on Russian TV showed the Aeroflot plane’s underside bursting into flames and spewing black smoke after making a hard landing at Sheremetyevo Airport on Sunday night.

BREAKING: Aeroflot #SU1492 Moscow Sheremetyevo to Murmansk (Sukhoi SuperJet SSJ100 RA-89098) declared an emergency & returned to SVO on fire at 1530UTC. Passengers seen evacuating. Extent of casualties not yet known. More soon…

Video credit & more videos: @dimsmirnov175 pic.twitter.com/HUPHJl9aIb

— Airport Webcams (@AirportWebcams) May 5, 2019

Transport Minister Ditrikh said 33 passengers and four crew members survived the inferno.

Six were in a serious condition and receiving treatment. One US citizen was killed in the incident, US authorities said.

Those who escaped leapt out of the Sukhoi SSJ100 airliner down inflatable emergency slides and ran across the tarmac.

Storms were passing through the Moscow area when the jet caught fire during the emergency landing.

-with AAP