Passengers push-start plane in punishing temperatures

MOSCOW: Siberian air passengers had to get out and push their plane in temperatures of minus 52 °C after its chassis froze, Russian prosecutors said yesterday.

The extraordinary story emerged after a passenger posted a video on YouTube showing a group of cheery travellers pushing the Tupolev plane on the snow-covered runway in Igarka, which is beyond the Arctic Circle.

“Let’s go,” passengers in thick winter coats shout and whoop as they put their hands on the wings of the plane and shove it several metres along the runway. “Everyone wants to go home,” one man says.

Transport prosecutors in western Siberia said they were investigating the incident, which took place on Tuesday.

“Due to the low air temperatures, the chassis’s brake system froze and a tow truck was unable to move the plane onto the taxiway to carry out the flight,” prosecutors said. “The passengers… got out of the plane and started pushing it onto the taxiway.”

The passengers’ can-do attitude has drawn awed admiration.

“Siberians are so tough that for them pushing a frozen plane along a runway is a piece of cake,” said the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

The plane, with 74 passengers on board, was being operated by Siberian airline Katekavia, which is part of UTair group. It was flying from Igarka, about 2 800km north-east of Moscow, to the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.

Video of the plane can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?vb5S svlV4New. – Sapa-AFP