Russian Airliner Makes Emergency Landing at Abandoned Airport

7 September 2010; Alrosa Mirny Air Enterprise; Tu154M; RA-85684; flight 514, Izhma, Russia: The aircraft was on a scheduled domestic flight from Udachny to Moscow, Russia. While en route at about FL347 near over Usinsk, Russia, the aircraft experienced a complete electrical failure that resulted in a loss of navigational equipment, fuel pumps, and flaps.

Effects of loss of electrical power
The Tupolev Tu154 uses the electric pumps that move the fuel from wing and center section fuel tanks into an engine feed tank. Inoperative fuel pumps left the crew with just the usable fuel in the engine feed tank, which provided about 30 minutes of flying time. Although the flaps are hydraulically driven, the switches that control the flaps are electrically driven, preventing the crew from using flaps during any landing attempt.

Successful emergency landingThe crew chose to land the airplane at an abandoned runway near the town of Izhma. The runway is about 4,000 feet (1,220 meters) long, and the aircraft overran the runway by about 150-200 meters, plowing through trees and other vegetation, and coming to rest in soft ground. According to a report in RT.com, one of the passengers described the aircraft as “cutting the tree tops like a lawnmower.” None of the nine crew members or 72 passengers were injured.

News report on emergency landing



Shorter news report on emergency landing

Additional Information
Accident information from Wikipedia
Russian plane crashes

Comic relief and plane crashes
When planes crash and everyone walks away to fly again, the world breaths a sigh of relief. When there is a happy ending like with this Alrosa accident, one of the ways that the average person responds is with a bit of humor. The following cartoon depicting Mother Nature's reaction to the impending emergency landing was published by the TV-Novosti site RT.com.

Crash of Spanair MD82 on 20 August 2008

The aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff on a scheduled domestic flight from Madrid to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. Early reports indicated that the left engine experienced a major malfunction during the takeoff. The aircraft was able to get airborne, but the crew set the aircraft down in a area to the right of the departure runway. The aircraft broke up and there was a severe post-crash fire.
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There were 162 passengers and 10 crew members on board, and 153 of the 172 occupants were killed. Among the passengers were 20 children and two infants. Both infants reportedly survived. Many of the 19 survivors suffered burns, some of them serious.

This was also a code share flight with Lufthansa, and that airline reported that seven of their passengers had transferred to the Spanair flight from a previous Lufthansa flight. , and that airline reported that seven of their passengers were checked in for the flight.

About Spanair
This was the first fatal event for Spanair, the second largest of the five airlines in the SAS Group. The airline began operations in 1988. At the end of June 2008, there were 65 aircraft in the Spanair fleet, averaging 13 years old. The fatal event aircraft was built in 1993.

About the MD80
This was the 15th fatal event involving the MD80 series aircraft. Four fatal events have been in Europe, and four in the US. The aircraft began commercial operations in 1980, with the first fatal event in 1981. This latest crash was the eighth fatal MD80 event since 2000.

For additional information on this crash, including links to related audio and video podcasts and updates on the investigation, visit
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