Ural Airlines flight U6178 has suffered a total engine failure, following a bird strike on departure, and landed in a corn field on Thursday morning.
The flight from Zhukovsky Airport near Russian capital Moscow was operated by an Airbus A321.
According to local news reports, there were 233 people, including seven crew member on board the aircraft. All occupants have been safely evacuated immediately after the hard landing. There are no reported fatalities. 10 people were taken to hospital, later reports suggest that a total of 23 were injured.
Flight U6178 was due to fly from Zhukovsky to Simferopol on the Crimean peninsula. The operating Airbus A321-200 is registered as VQ-BOZ and was built in 2003.
During the landing, the aircraft received significant structural damage. Images posted to social media show that the engines broke off from the wings.
Zhukovsky Airport is a rather small international airport in the Moscow area, serving 1.3 million passengers in 2018. It is located almost 40 kilometres southeast of the capital city’s centre.
Ural Airlines carried nine million customers last year, using a fleet of 45 Airbus A320 family aircraft. The Russian carrier recently took delivery of its first Airbus A320neo.
Jakob Wert is an aviation journalist from Germany. He built up the website IFN.news and is the Editor-In-Chief of International Flight Network.
