A UTair Boeing 737 aircraft carrying 94 passengers has been forced to make an extremely hard landing in northwestern Russia on Sunday morning.
“A Utair Boeing crash-landed at Usinsk airport," the local authorities said in the northern Komi region where the city of Usinsk is located. According to local media reports, the aircraft came down fast and the tail struck the ground first. The jet then skidded across the runway, which is said to have been icy at the time of the crash. Local weather stations indicate temperatures at the airport were -20c.
"The flight was normal but as we were landing either due to bad weather or some other reason the plane violently shook horizontally." Alexander Panin, a passenger on the downed aircraft said. "It hit the ground so that the landing gear was torn off and we felt that were skidding along the runway as if not able to brake at all. We all realised that the landing gear was broken. We didn’t feel that the plane was stopping - we were skidding towards the end of the runway."