MOSCOW: A Russian airline pilot averted disaster on Thursday, safely landing an Airbus A321 jet with over 230 passengers and crew on board in a field near Moscow after it struck a flock of seagulls and lost power in both engines.
The Crimea-bound Ural Airlines plane was forced to touch down without landing gear deployed after seagulls damaged its engines shortly after takeoff from Zhukovsky Airport, the civil aviation watchdog said in a statement.
“After takeoff, birds got caught in the engines, with the left engine stalling immediately,” co-pilot Georgy Murzin, 23, said in a video posted on a Ramenskiy page on VK.com. “Then they got caught in the second engine and it became unstable, and also stalled. There wasn’t enough thrust, and we lost altitude. We landed in a field manually, the commander took control.”
Video reportedly from within the plane showed the passengers remained quiet as it approached a vast cornfield, only for shouting to erupt as the jet touched down. News website Life.ru posted footage of people walking through the corn plants away from the plane.
The crew “has shown fantastic skills and self-control. The captain was Damir Yusupov. He and his crew saved 223 lives. Heroes,” region Governor Evgeny Kuyvashev wrote on Instagram. Yusupov is 41 years old, according to the airline.
