Igor Yelfimov, 26, an airport engineering service employee, was torn to shreds when a Kazakh airline's Boeing 737-700 started its engines at 3:44 a.m., Valery Luchinin of the Federal Service for Supervision of Transportation said by telephone Wednesday.
Investigators were still undecided Wednesday as to how the gruesome accident, which has been described as the first of its kind in Russia, could have happened.
"The investigation commission has been working for two days and it is too early to say what caused the accident," Luchinin said.
"We don't remember anything of this kind happening, but people have been caught in the blades of turboprops or helicopters before."
Safety regulations do not allow personnel to stand within 10 meters in front of a working engine or 50 meters behind it, although requirements differ for various types of aircraft, Luchinin said.
It was not immediately clear whether Yelfimov was working on the Boeing 737, operated by Kazakh state-owned airline Air Astana, or why else he would have been near the aircraft.
Sergei Burobin, a tutor at the Moscow State Transport University of Civil Aviation, where Yelfimov studied, said his colleagues at the aviation training center were all shocked at the news of his death.
"I have known him for 10 years. He was a diligent engineer, a very good technician, crazy about aviation," Burobin said.
Burobin said Yelfimov had excelled in his training classes, where he underwent a total of 288 hours of airfield practice for Ilyushin Il-86s.
After graduating two years ago, Yelfimov worked at Bykovo Airport, then moved to East Line, which operates Domodedovo Airport, before joining Sheremetyevo.
"Mechanics do stand by when the first engine starts up, to see whether there are any leaks or other malfunctions -- but at a safe distance," Burobin said. "There haven't been any cases like this before, but we still use it to scare students."
Sheremetyevo Airport spokesman Dmitry Petrachenko said nighttime conditions and heavy rain might have contributed to the accident.
Petrachenko said that Yelfimov worked in the airport's tug aircraft brigade and should not have been standing by the aircraft when the engines were started.
Vasily Bobrov, a former head of Aeroflot's aviation technical center who now heads Domodedovo's technical certification center, suggested that Yelfimov could have been working on the aircraft, but just not following safety procedures.
"It is a tragedy, but the safety rules are written in blood and have to be obeyed," Bobrov said.
The Air Astana flight was delayed for several hours, with the passengers leaving for Almaty on a different plane.
Two years ago, a similar accident happened at Japan's Kansai Airport when a Chinese maintenance engineer reportedly ran after an Air China Boeing 767 as it began to taxi before takeoff.
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