Russians hailed a miracle on Thursday after a passenger plane carrying 233 people made an emergency landing in a corn field on the outskirts of Moscow after striking a flock of birds shortly after take-off.

The Ministry of Health said 23 people had suffered injuries, but that nobody had been killed when the Ural Airlines Airbus 321 came down in a field southeast of Moscow after striking a flock of gulls, disrupting its engines.

State television said the maneuver was being dubbed the “miracle over Ramensk”, a reference to the district of Moscow region where the plane came down more than 1 km (0.62 miles) from Zhukovsky International Airport.

The Interfax news agency cited a source as saying one person had suffered serious injuries.

The Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid lauded pilot Damir Yusupov as a “hero,” saying he had saved 233 lives, “having masterfully landed a plane without its landing gear with a failing engine right in a corn field.”

Some drew comparisons with US Airways Flight 1549 which performed a landing on the Hudson River in 2009 after striking a flock of geese.

The engines were turned off when it made the emergency landing and it also had its landing gear up, said Elena Mikheyeva, a spokeswoman for Russia’s civil aviation authority.

An unnamed passenger interviewed by state television said the plane had started to shake violently shortly after take-off.

“Five seconds later, 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,” he said.

The plane was due to fly to Simferopol in Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.

Safety concerns have plagued Russia’s airline industry since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, though standards are widely recognized to have sharply risen on international routes in particular in recent years. </s> MOSCOW-A Russian passenger plane has made an emergency landing in a cornfield near Moscow after striking a flock of birds.

Fifty-five people reportedly sought medical treatment after the incident, which saw the plane land with its engines off and landing gear retracted.

The Ural Airlines Airbus 321 was travelling to Simferopol in Crimea when it hit the flock of gulls shortly after take-off, disrupting its engines.

State media has dubbed the landing the “miracle over Ramensk”.

The Kremlin on Thursday hailed the pilots as heroes for “saving people’s lives and landing the plane”. A spokesman said they would receive state awards soon. The airline said the plane was significantly damaged and would not fly again. An official investigation is under way. The plane had more than 230 passengers and crew on board when the birds were reportedly sucked into its engines and the crew immediately decided to land. An unnamed passenger told state TV the plane started to shake violently after take-off.

“Five seconds later, 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,” he said. Air transport agency Rosaviatsia said the plane landed in a cornfield about a kilometre (0.62 miles) from the runway at Zhukovsky International Airport, with its engines off and landing gear retracted.

Passengers were evacuated from the plane, with 55 then seeking medical treatment and six taken to hospital, medical sources told state news agency Tass. Ural Airlines Director General Kirill Skuratov told the news agency that passengers who wanted to continue with their trip would be put on alternative flights.

Russian media compared the incident to the US Airways flight that carried out an emergency landing on the Hudson River shortly after take-off in 2009.

Collisions between birds and planes are a common occurrence in aviation, with thousands reported every year in the US alone. However, they rarely result in accidents or cause damage to the aircraft. </s> MOSCOW — A Russian passenger jet crash-landed into a cornfield shortly after takeoff from Moscow on Thursday, injuring 23 people, but remarkably, no one was killed, according to Russian media reports and the national aviation regulator Rosaviatsia.

Ural Airlines Flight 178 collided with a flock of gulls just after leaving Zhukovsky International Airport near Moscow, severely damaging the aircraft’s engines and forcing it to make the emergency landing less than a mile from the airport.

“Thanks to the professionalism of pilots and the crew, there were no serious injuries and damages among the passengers,” the Russian Health Ministry said in a statement.

The airliner, an Airbus A321, had 226 passengers and seven crew members onboard and was bound for Simferopol in Crimea, Rosaviatsia said in a statement. An investigation into the incident has begun. </s> MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian passenger plane performed an emergency landing near Moscow shortly after take off on Thursday after birds were sucked into its engines, the airline and state media reported.

The Ural Airlines’ flight was traveling from Moscow to Crimea’s Simferopol, they said. There were no casualties, the reports said.

The Airbus 321, with 234 people on board, made an emergency landing near Zhukovsky International Airport, south-east of Moscow, RIA state news agency reported, citing Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations.

Ural Airlines said on its Twitter account that no one was hurt when its U6178 flight had to land after birds got sucked into the aircraft’s engines.

“There was an emergency landing in Zhukovsky. Birds got into both engines. Engines turned off, the crew carried out the landing ... one kilometer away from the runway,” TASS state news agency quoted Ural Airlines’ general director, Sergei Skuratovб, as saying.

TASS cited a source saying that the aircraft had landed in a field near the airport. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

Safety concerns have plagued Russia’s airline industry, which has experienced many fatal crashes in recent years. </s> (CNN) A Russian passenger jet flew into a flock of birds then crash-landed in a cornfield just outside a Moscow airport Thursday, according to Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency.

The Ural Airlines Airbus A321 was carrying 226 passengers and a crew of seven from Moscow's Zhukovsky airport to Simferopol -- a city on the Crimean Peninsula -- when it ran into trouble.

Shortly after takeoff, the plane "collided with a flock of gulls," according a statement from the agency.

Some of the birds were sucked into its engines, it added.

Emergency services assist at the scene on Thursday.

The emergency landing took place in a field less than a kilometer (0.62 miles) away from the airport's runway.

Read More </s> The captain of a Russian passenger jet that collided with a flock of gulls seconds after take off has been praised for crash-landing the plane safely.

At least 23 people were injured in the incident, which caused the engines of the Ural Airlines plane to malfunction. It meant 41-year-old Damir Yusupovmake decided to make an emergency landing in a corn field three miles from the runway.

The A321, which took off from Moscow’s Zhukovsky airport and was headed to Simferopol in Crimea on Thursday, was carrying 226 passengers and seven crew members when it hit the birds. After landing, everyone on board was evacuated.

Images show the plane lying flat on its belly in the field.

The incident has resulted in comparisons to the 2009 “Miracle on the Hudson,” when a captain ditched his plane in New York’s Hudson River after a bird strike disabled his engines.

The injured passengers in Ural Airlines incident included five children. All 23 people were taken to hospital with all but one being released following check-ups and quick treatment.

The engines on planes are designed to withstand occasional collisions with birds. However contact can result in serious problems. In 2009, a US Airways Airbus A320 hit a flock of geese after take-off from New York City’s LaGuardia Airport and both of its engines shut down. The crew made an emergency landing in the Hudson River off Midtown Manhattan, and everyone survived. The “Miracle on the Hudson” was immortalised in the Hollywood movie Sully, starring Tom Hanks.

In a statement, the airline said the pilot shut down the engines to avoid fire breaking out as the plane landed with its fuel tanks fully loaded.

Mr Yusupov is a highly experienced pilot with more than 3,000 hours of flying time.

Alexander Neradko, chief of Russia’s Rosaviatsiya state aviation agency praised the crew on board the Ural Airlines plane. “The crew has shown courage and professionalism and deserve the highest state awards,” he said.

“It was quite a feat to keep the plane from stalling and quickly find a place to land,” Viktor Zabolotsky, a former test pilot, said in televised remarks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman hailed the pilots as “heroes” and said they will receive state awards. </s> MOSCOW — Two Russian pilots safely landed an airliner carrying 233 people in a cornfield outside Moscow after striking a flock of birds, prompting the Kremlin to hail them as heroes who will receive top state awards.

Russians have said it was a miracle that no one was killed when the Ural Airlines Airbus 321 came down in a field southeast of Moscow with its landing gear up after hitting a passing flock of gulls, disrupting the plane’s engines.

Up to 74 people, including 19 children, were treated for injuries, six of whom have been hospitalized, Russian news agencies quoted the emergencies ministry as saying.

State television said the incident was being dubbed the “miracle over Ramensk,” the name of the district near Moscow where the plane came down around one kilometer (0.62 miles) from Zhukovsky International Airport.

The Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid praised pilot Damir Yusupov as a “hero,” saying he had saved 233 lives, “having masterfully landed a plane without its landing gear with a failing engine right in a corn field.”

Some drew comparisons with U.S. Airways Flight 1549 which performed a landing on the Hudson River in New York in 2009 after striking a flock of geese.

“We congratulate the hero pilots who saved people’s lives,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that the Kremlin would see that the men were quickly given state honours. “There’s no doubt about this. They will be given awards.”

The plane’s engines were turned off when it executed the emergency landing and it also had its landing gear up, according to Elena Mikheyeva, a spokeswoman for Russia’s civil aviation authority.

Footage shot by passengers showed the flight lasted less than two minutes and that the engines had experienced difficulties almost immediately after take-off.

Vitya Babin, 11, who was on the plane with his mother and sister, said passengers had not been warned there was going to be an emergency landing. There was silence in the cabin and then screams began when it touched down, footage showed.

“We were not warned,” said Babin.

An unnamed passenger interviewed by state television said the plane had started to shake moments after it took off.

“Five seconds later, 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,” he said.

Passengers were evacuated via escape slides and were told to distance themselves from the plane.

“One of the stewardesses said there was smoke coming from the plane and we immediately panicked. We ran after one of the men. He said follow me,” Babin said.

A local resident quoted by radio station Govorit Moskva said the gulls that struck the plane had probably come from an illegal rubbish dump near Zhukovsky airport.

Moscow region officials, however, rejected that assertion and said the nearest rubbish dump to the airport was 14 kilometers away, TASS news agency reported.

The plane was due to fly to Simferopol in Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014.

Safety concerns have plagued Russia’s airline industry since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, though standards are widely recognized to have sharply risen on international routes in particular in recent years. </s> MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian pilot who landed a passenger plane in a cornfield after hitting a flock of birds said he was no hero despite the Kremlin lauding him for saving the lives of 233 people.

Russian media have said it was a miracle that no one was killed when the Ural Airlines Airbus 321 was forced to land on Thursday in a field on the outskirts of Moscow less than two minutes after it took off from Zhukovsky International Airport.

“I did what I had to do,” said Damir Yusupov, the captain who guided the Airbus down. “I saved the plane, the passengers, the crew. I think that was the only decision. I don’t think I’m a hero.”

“There was no fear or dread,” he was also quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.

The plane was carrying 233 people en route to Simferopol in Crimea. More than 70 passengers were treated for injuries following the emergency landing but nobody was killed. The Kremlin has lauded the pilots for their handling of the aircraft and promised to give them state awards.

A second pilot, Georgy Murzin, was receiving treatment in a hospital on Friday for a bruised chest, the RIA news agency reported.

Russia’s natural resources watchdog said late on Thursday it had identified an illegal rubbish dump roughly two kilometers from Zhukovsky International, which is southeast of Moscow, as being the possible home of the birds which caused the emergency landing.

Officials from the watchdog and the ecology ministry were due to check the site as well as others nearby, RIA news agency reported. </s> A Russian passenger jet flew into a flock of birds then crash-landed in a cornfield just outside a Moscow airport Thursday, according to Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency.

The Ural Airlines Airbus A321 was carrying 226 passengers and a crew of seven from Moscow’s Zhukovsky airport to Simferopol — a city on the Crimean Peninsula — when it ran into trouble.

Shortly after takeoff, the plane “collided with a flock of gulls,” according a statement from the agency.

Some of the birds were sucked into its engines, it added.

The emergency landing took place in a field less than a kilometer (0.62 miles) away from the airport’s runway.

Videos posted to social media show the passengers of flight U6178 evacuating from the plane and making a path through the field.

In one video, a female passenger walking through the tall green stalks can be heard saying “second birth,” noting that she was lucky to just be alive.

Pilot Damir Yusupov, 41, and co-pilot Georgy Murzin, 23, were praised by the airline for their professionalism in difficult circumstances.

“Precisely due to their professionalism, self-possession and coordinated actions (they) managed to land a plane without tragic consequences,” a Ural Airlines statement said.

Yusupov has clocked up more than 3,000 flight hours, the airline said. He graduated with honors in 2013 from St. Petersburg State University of Civil Aviation and was hired by the company immediately after graduating.

Murzin graduated from the same university in 2017, was hired last year, and has a total of 600 flying hours, it said.

In a video posted on Russian social media platform VKontakte, Murzin detailed how the pair managed to bring the plane down safely.

“After takeoff, birds got caught in the engines, with the left engine stalling immediately,” Murzin said.

“Then they got caught in the second engine and it became unstable, and also stalled. There wasn’t enough thrust, and we lost altitude. We landed in a field manually — the commander took control,” he added.

Up to 55 passengers, including 17 children, have been given medical attention, Russian state news agency TASS reported, citing a source in the regional Center for Disaster Medicine. Six have been hospitalized, it said.

In a statement, Ural Airlines said that the plane had been significantly damaged and would not be in service in the future, TASS reported.

Yekaterina Korotkova, a spokesperson for the Moscow Inter-Regional Transport Prosecutor’s Office, told TASS that a probe has been opened into the accident.

In May, at least 41 people on board a Russian Aeroflot SU1492 jet were killed after the aircraft crash-landed at a Moscow airport on Sunday, bursting into flames on impact.

And in June, two passengers were killed on a Angara Airlines flight in Siberia after it overshot the runway and burst into flames.
A Ural Airlines Airbus 321 crash lands in a field near Zhukovsky International Airport in Moscow Region, Russia. The event is dubbed the "Miracle over Ramensk", as only 23 passengers had minor injuries, similar to US Airways Flight 1549. Preliminary reports say the aircraft struck a flock of seagulls.