Plane Makes Emergency Landing in Cornfield After Bird Strike

A Ural Airlines plane made an emergency landing in a cornfield near Moscow after it struck a flock of gulls. The Simferopol-bound plane, an Airbus 321, was carrying over 230 passengers when the incident occurred. No one was killed in this incident and the flight’s crew have been hailed as heroes.

A Ural Airlines plane was forced to make an emergency landing on Thursday after a bird strike, the BBC reports. The jet, an Airbus 321, had just taken off from the Russian capital and was bound for the Crimean city of Simferopol when the incident occurred.

The craft was carrying over 230 passengers and crew – including children – when it hit a flock of gulls. The strike disrupted its engine function and the crew opted to make an emergency landing. According to Reuters, crew guided the jet to safety in a cornfield under a mile from the tarmac at Zhukovsky International Airport (ZIA).

It is reported by Russian civil aviation authorities that the craft’s landing gear had been retracted and its engine had been shut down prior to touchdown.

No one has been said to have been killed as a result of the incident, which has been dubbed by the Russian media as the “miracle over Ramensk”. However, as many as 74 persons have been reported as injured, including 19 children.

Reuters reports that the plane had struggled almost immediately upon departure. According to an eyewitness account offered to the news agency by an unidentified passenger, shortly after takeoff, “…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.”

The pilots of the flight have been hailed as heroes by the Kremlin, with a spokesperson Dmitry Peskov quoted by Reuters as saying, “There’s no doubt about this. They will be given awards.”

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