Russian air crash investigators were preparing on Monday to examine the flight recorders from a plane which crashed only seconds after taking off from Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.

Fourteen people died when the Pulkovo Airlines Ilyushin Il-86 came down in a forest about 700 metres (2,300 feet) from the airport.

There were body parts lying all around

Policeman

The aircraft, which can carry up to 350 passengers, was empty apart from 16 flight and cabin crew. It was flying to St Petersburg.

Two women were pulled alive from the wreckage and taken to hospital.

Both flight recorders were recovered, Russian media reported, and were said to be in good condition.

Ball of flame

The RIA-Novosti news agency, quoting a source in the inquiry, said investigators were looking at engine failure as a possible cause of the crash.

Witnesses said the plane appeared to take off without problems, but then banked sharply at about 200 metres (656 feet) and crashed in a ball of flame.

Rescue workers and fire crews raced to the scene.

A huge plume of smoke was still rising from the wreckage hours after the plane came down at about 1530 local time (1130 GMT) on Sunday.

"I have never seen anything like this in all my years of service. There were body parts lying al around," a policeman at the crash site told Reuters news agency.

About 100 army conscripts combed the area for debris for the investigation, and a group of Russian security service officials were also at the scene of the crash.

Survival 'exceptional'

Officials said two female flight attendants, who had both been in the plane's tail section, survived the crash.

The aircraft came down in a forest

One of the women suffered concussion of the brain and was taken to intensive care.

The other, identified as Arina Vinogradova, suffered only an injured hand and bruises and was shown on Russian television sitting up in her hospital bed.

Dmitry Fedorovsky, a doctor, said Ms Vinogradova's survival was an "exceptional case".

The Ilyushin Il-86, a four-engine wide-bodied plane, is Russia's most common, long-distance airliner.

The crash came a day after a Russian-built Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jet crashed into a crowd in western Ukraine, killing 83 people, in the world's worst air show disaster.