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.