Russian plane forced to land in maize farm

A plane from Russia with 170 people aboard had to make an emergency landing in a field of maize because something went wrong with its hydraulic system.

Nobody got hurt in the accident. The Ural Airlines Airbus A320 got stuck near a forest in the Novosibirsk region of Siberia.

Ural said that the pilot chose the place to land after the jet’s hydraulic systems stopped working while getting near Omsk.

The airline denied that it couldn’t maintain its planes because of sanctions on Russia.

The pictures showed a plane stuck in a field of corn. The doors were open and ramps were down, and there were people walking around.

A video on social media showed a big machine cutting apart a plane, removing the cockpit, tail, and wings so that it could be taken away from the field more easily.

Russia’s aviation agency, Rosaviatsia, reported that an unexpected landing occurred early on Tuesday.

It also said that they chose a place to land from the sky near the village of Kamenka. No one on board asked for medical help, it said.

Rosaviatsia stated that they are looking into the emergency landing situation, and Ural Airlines mentioned that the crew members are temporarily relieved of duty until the investigation is finished.
The leader of Ural Airlines, Sergei Skuratov, stated that a part of the plane that controls its movement and brakes stopped working while it was flying from Sochi to Omsk on the coast of the Black Sea.

He said the marks above the wing in pictures were just dirt and that the plane did not catch fire.

If a plane’s hydraulic systems have a really bad problem, it can make the plane very hard to steer and control.

However, Russian aviation experts said that there are extra systems in place and disagreed with the crew’s choice to abandon the aircraft.

“Andrei Litvinov, the pilot of the A320, told Gazeta. ru that there are three hydraulic systems and one electric system. ” “We don’t have to land the plane in a field. ”

He said that the decision put the lives of people on the plane and on the ground at risk.
Sanctions against Russia are causing problems for airlines.

The emergency landing happened because Russian airlines are having trouble getting necessary parts for their planes because of sanctions from Western countries. The sanctions are because of Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

In March, a Russian media company called Vedomosti reported that Ural Airlines official Igor Poddubny said they had approximately three months left before they started taking apart planes to use their parts.

However, Skuratov insists that all the planes in his airline are fixed with real parts.

Mr Skuratov said that we will never let wrong spare parts be used. It’s hard and takes effort, but all the spare parts used on our aircraft are approved.

“I guarantee it with certainty. ”

The Interfax agency said that the A320 plane that crashed was around 20 years old and had a certificate saying it was safe to fly until the end of next year.

In August, Reuters mentioned that Ural Airlines and other Russian airlines found a way to evade Western sanctions multiple times. They used intermediaries in countries like China and the UAE, which don’t follow the restrictions.

In 2019, a Ural Airlines airplane had to land in a field near Moscow because some birds hit it while it was taking off. About 70 out of the 230 people traveling in the plane were hurt in the accident, which Russian media called the “miracle over Ramensk”.

The crew received awards from the government later on.