Doctors were fighting Sunday for the lives of four survivors of a fiery Moscow plane crash the day before, in which an airliner slammed through an airport perimeter fence and showered debris on passing cars.
Four people were killed when the nearly empty Tupolev Tu-204 overshot the runway at Vnukovo Airport while landing Saturday after a flight from the Czech Republic. Eight persons, reportedly crew only, were on board.
A successful operation had been carried out on one young male survivor, said Anzor Khubutiya, a doctor with the Moscow emergency medical department quoted by the Interfax news agency.
The final stage of the crash was filmed by a fixed camera in a passing car. The video, later uploaded to YouTube, showed a fragment of the plane hitting a car on a freeway next to the airport. Its driver survived uninjured.
Investigators hope the black boxes which have been recovered from the wreckage will reveal why the plane, operated by the charter airline Red Wings, crashed, after which it caught fire and broke in three.
The Tu-204 is a type that can carry more than 200 passengers in some versions.