Moscow - Russians hailed a miracle on
Thursday after a passenger plane carrying 233 people made an
emergency landing in a corn field on the outskirts of Moscow
after striking a flock of birds shortly after take-off.
The Ministry of Health said 23 people had suffered injuries,
but that nobody had been killed when the Ural Airlines Airbus
321 came down in a field southeast of Moscow after striking a
flock of gulls, disrupting its engines.
State television said the manoeuvre was being dubbed the
"miracle over Ramensk", a reference to the district of Moscow
region where the plane came down more than 1 km (0.62 miles)
from Zhukovsky International Airport.
The Interfax news agency cited a source as saying one person
had suffered serious injuries.
The Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid 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 corn field."
A view shows a passenger plane following an emergency landing near Moscow. Picture: Reuters
Some drew comparisons with U.S. Airways Flight 1549 which
performed a landing on the Hudson River in 2009 after striking a
flock of geese.
The engines were turned off when it made the emergency
landing and it also had its landing gear up, said Elena
Mikheyeva, a spokeswoman for Russia's civil aviation authority.
Firefighters spray foam on a passenger plane following an emergency landing near Moscow. Picture: Reuters
An unnamed passenger interviewed by state television said
the plane had started to shake violently shortly after take-off.
Russian Ural Airlines' A321, carrying 226 passengers and a crew of seven, collided with a flock of birds while taking off from Moscow's Zhukovsky airport. Picture: Denis Voronin, Moscow News Agency via AP
"Five seconds later, the lights on the right side of the
plane started flashing and there was a smell of burning. Then we
landed and everyone ran away," he said.
The plane was due to fly to Simferopol in Crimea, the
peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.
A view shows a passenger plane following an emergency landing near Moscow. Picture: Reuters
Safety concerns have plagued Russia's airline industry since
the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, though standards are
widely recognised to have sharply risen on international routes
in particular in recent years.