A Russian Airbus A320 carrying 170 passengers crash-landed in a field in Siberia region on Tuesday, the 12th of September, due to a hydraulic fault, with no injuries reported, writes British media outlet BBC.
The Russian aviation agency Rosaviatsia reported that the “unscheduled landing” took place in the early hours of Tuesday morning, with the landing site “selected from the air” near the village of Kamenka and none of the passengers requiring medical attention.
Rosaviatsia said it was investigating the emergency landing
and Ural Airlines said the crew had been suspended due to ongoing investigation.
Pictures and videos posted on social media showed the plane in an open field with the emergency doors open, people gathered around it, a heavy excavator dismantling the plane, removing the cockpit, tail section, and wings to pull it out of the field.
The Airbus A320 plane that landed in a field today is going to be cut up.
Russian media reports that transporting the aircraft is impossible. Four years ago, this was done with an Airbus A321, which landed in a corn field in the Moscow region. pic.twitter.com/7hz3bdwLUm
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) September 12, 2023
Sergei Skuratov, CEO of Ural Airlines, said that one of the plane’s hydraulic systems stopped working during the flight from Sochi to Omsk, denying that there was a fire and explaining that the apparent
burn marks above the wing were “just dirt”.
Although a catastrophic failure of the hydraulics could result in loss of flight control, Russian aviation experts claimed that there were backup systems and questioned the crew’s decision to land the aircraft on the field.
Pilot Andrei Litvinov told Gazeta.ru that the Airbus A320 had three hydraulic systems, one electric, suggesting that
an emergency landing was not necessary,
expressing concern for the safety of passengers and those on the ground.
Western sanctions against Moscow stemming from its actions in Ukraine have created obstacles for Russian airlines to buy spare parts, further worsening problems in the aviation sector.
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