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The Ural Airlines Airbus plane made an emergency landing in a cornfield. Photo/Reuters
MOSCOW – A Russian plane carrying 170 people was forced to make an emergency landing in a field after a hydraulic failure occurred. No one was injured in the emergency that left the Ural Airlines Airbus A320 stranded near a forest in the Novosibirsk region of Siberia, Russia.
Ural Airlines said the pilot “selected” the landing site after the jet’s hydraulic system failed on approach to Omsk. The incident prompted a denial from the airline that it could not service its planes because of sanctions against Russia.
Images showed the plane stranded in a cornfield, its emergency doors open and down, and people crowding around.
A video on social media showed a heavy digger then dismembering the plane, cutting off the cockpit, tail and wings to make it easier to remove the plane from the field.
Russian aviation agency Rosaviatsia said that the “unscheduled landing” occurred in the early hours of Tuesday (12/9/2023).
Rosaviatsia added that the landing point had been “selected from the air” near the village of Kamenka. None of the passengers sought medical help.
Rosaviatsia said it was investigating the emergency landing, and Ural said its crew had been suspended until the investigation was complete.
Sergei Skuratov, CEO of Ural Airlines, said one of the plane’s hydraulic systems failed while flying to Omsk from Sochi on the Black Sea coast. He denied that the plane was on fire, and said scorch marks above one of the wings visible in pictures on social media were “just dirt”.
A major failure in the aircraft’s hydraulic system could result in loss of flight control.
