Airplane makes ‘miracle landing’ in Moscow

World Saturday 17/August/2019 17:21 PM
By: Times News Service
Airplane makes ‘miracle landing’ in Moscow

Moscow: A passenger jet made an emergency landing in a cornfield outside of one of Moscow's airports after colliding with a flock of birds.

The Airbus A321 aircraft of Ural Airlines was carrying 226 passengers and seven crew members from Moscow's Zhukovsky airport to Simferopol in Russia-annexed Crimea, the Rosaviatsia air transport agency said in a statement.

"There was an emergency landing in Zhukovsky. Birds got into both engines. Engines turned off, the crew carried out the landing ... one kilometre away from the runway," TASS state news agency quoted the airlines' general director, Sergei Skuratov, as saying.

The Ministry of Health said 23 people were injured, including nine children.

The plane landed in a cornfield, with its engines off and landing gear retracted, the agency added.

State television said the manoeuvre by the airline's pilot was being dubbed the "miracle over Ramensk”.

The Komsomolskaya Pravda lauded pilot Damir Yusupov as a "hero", saying he had saved 233 lives, "having masterfully landed a plane without its landing gear with a failing engine right in a cornfield".