Russian Plane That Landed in a Siberian Field Will Be Scrapped After Airline Abandons Plan to Fly it Out

A Russian passenger plane that made an emergency landing in a Siberian field in September 2023 will now be dismantled bit by bit after the airline eventually decided that it wouldn’t actually be possible to fly the aircraft out of the field.

During a routine flight from the Russian city of Sochi to Omsk, the pilots of the Ural Airlines Airbus A320 decided to make an emergency landing in a farmer’s wheat field after experiencing a technical issue with the plane’s hydraulic system.

As a result of the hydraulic problems, the Captain feared that the plane’s brakes wouldn’t be effective on the shorter runway at Omsk, so he requested a diversion to an alternative airport in Novosibirsk, but the aircraft used up more fuel than anticipated.

Concerned that the nearly 20-year-old aircraft would run out of fuel before it reached Novosibirsk, the pilots instead opted to land the aircraft in a field.

All 159 passengers, including 23 children and six crew members, evacuated the aircraft without incident using the emergency slides, although five passengers required medical assistance, including two for bruising sustained during the evacuation.

Ural Airlines has maintained the aircraft ever since, with the hopes that it could create a temporary runway to fly the plane out.

On Thursday, however, local Russian media reported that the airline has finally decided that this plan isn’t actually feasible and will instead scrap the otherwise airworthy plane.

To do so, Ural Airlines has been forced to pay the owner of the field a year’s worth of rent while it dismantles the aircraft in the remote Siberian wilderness.

Russia’s air safety agency has dismissed concerns that Western sanctions prompted by President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine could be partly responsible for the accident and have instead suggested that pilot training was the primary cause.