Russian plane makes emergency landing

Two people die and dozens get injured as Russian airliner runs off the runway during an emergency landing.

MOSCOW: Two people died and dozens were injured on Saturday when a Russian airliner ran off the runway during an emergency landing at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport, an aviation official said.

The Tupolev-154 plane, operated by Dagestan Airlines, took off from the Vnukovo airport, outside Moscow, and made an emergency landing nearly 30 minutes later, after all three engines failed.

“Two people were killed,” said Sergei Izvolvsky, an official at Russia’s state-owned aviation agency. “The planes’ three engines stopped working nearly 80 km away from Domodedovo and the navigation system failed. We don’t know why,” Izvolvsky said.

At least 87 passengers were hospitalised at various clinics near the airport, said Timur Sikmatov, a spokesman at the transport ministry. The plane was carrying 163 passengers and nine crew members.

Pictures showed the aircraft broken into three pieces, having slid off the runway and through trees. The airliner was heading for Makhachkala, capital of Dagestan. It was a Tu-154 plane, the same type as one that crashed in April and killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and some 90 others.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 5^th, 2010.