The Russian news agency Interfax reported that the Expedition 16 crew members were in serious danger during their descent to the landing site.

On Saturday, Commander Peggy Whitson, cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko of the 16th International Space Station crew, together with the South Korean astronaut So-yeon Yi landed on the steppes of Kazakhstan around 4:30 a.m. EDT.

Expedition 16 crew members undocked their Soyuz spacecraft from the station at 1: 06 a.m. Saturday. The deorbit burn to slow the Soyuz and begin its descent toward the Earth took place at 3:40 a.m. Apparently something went wrong during the descent and the Russian Soyuz TMA-11 capsule missed its pre-established landing spot and ended up 230 miles away from its initial target.

Today, Interfax reported that according to a Russian official close to the investigation the astronauts were very lucky to remain unharmed after their spacecraft went on what was described as a “ballistic trajectory”

"The fact that the crew members remained unharmed, in one piece, was very lucky. Everything could have ended much worse," the anonymous source noted according to Interfax. "You can say that the situation was on the edge of a razor," he added.

The Russian officials have started already a post-landing investigation, but so far no details were disclosed.

Alexei Krasnov, the head of the Russian space agency's manned space programs, confirmed that an official commission was formed to investigate the glitch. "It's difficult to immediately name a specific reason behind the problem. We need to do an in-depth analysis," he said to AP.

Interfax also reported that according to the same source the spacecraft entered Earth's atmosphere with the hatch first instead of with its heat shields. Apparently, this has caused the burning of Soyuz TMA 11’s antenna and the crew was unable to communicate with the Russian Mission Control. The Soyuz TMA spacecraft is a replacement for the Soyuz TM, which was used from May 1986 to November 2002 to take astronauts and cosmonauts to Mir and then to the International Space Station beginning in November 2000.

According to the Associated Press, John Yembrick said NASA was reserving comment until the Russians determine what happened.

The Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft was launched to ISS on October 10 last year with a crew that included Commander Peggy Whitson, Russian flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko and the first Malaysian astronaut, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor.

Shukor returned on the Earth on October 21, together with the Russian atronauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov, the members of Expedition 15. They also experienced a "ballistic trajectory" during the re-entry.

Today, So-yeon Yi talked about her experience in a press conference held at Russia’s Star City cosmonaut training center outside Moscow. She described moments of fear while seeing flames outside the capsule as they were descending through the atmosphere: “At first I was really scared because it looked really, really hot and I thought we could burn,” she explained.