By akademiotoelektronik, 23/03/2022

"A miracle": the passengers of a plane that disappeared in Siberia all survived

“A miracle”: the 18 passengers and crew members of the Russian plane which had disappeared from radar in Siberia, forced into an emergency landing in the taiga, were found on Friday alive and without serious injuries.

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Initially, the regional Emergencies Ministry said the An-28 had been located and appeared to have made an "emergency landing", adding that survivors had been seen by rescuers from the air.

Passengers and crew alive

“The 15 passengers and three crew members have been found. All the people who were on board are alive”, then announced the Rosaviatsia air agency in a press release, specifying that they were transferred to Tomsk, the capital of the region.

No serious injuries are to be deplored among the survivors, the doctors having “recorded mainly bruises and abrasions”, according to a press release from the regional authorities. “We all believed in a miracle. And thanks to the professionalism of the pilots, it took place and everyone is alive”, greeted the governor of the Tomsk region, Sergei Zvatchkine, quoted in the press release.

According to the Interfax agency, six of the passengers of the plane refused to be transported by air to Tomsk, after being evacuated from the place of landing by helicopter. “They will be taken to Tomsk with a minibus,” local official Alexei Sevostyanov said.

A damaged device 150 kilometers from Tomsk

According to this press release, the plane was found about 150 kilometers west of Tomsk, where it should have landed. Images published by Russian media show the badly damaged device lying on its back in the taiga, with the earth inside its cabin.

The An-28 plane that disappeared from radar on Friday July 16 in the Tomsk region of Siberia with 18 people on board had been located and survivors had been seen earlier in the day, according to Russian authorities.

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Several Mi-8 helicopters were immediately sent in search of the An-28 in the south of the Tomsk region. And nearly two hours after the triggering of its distress signal, the plane had been found. The air rescue of the region, quoted by the Interfax agency, specified that the plane was "very damaged".

“All the passengers and crew members are alive,” an official from the SiLA company told Interfax, without this statement being confirmed by the authorities for the time being.

The plane had passed the technical checks

The plane disappeared from radar with at least 13 people on board on Friday July 16 in the Tomsk region of western Siberia, Russian news agencies said, citing local authorities. Operated by the company "Siberian Light Aviation" (SiLA), it linked the small town of Kedrovy to Tomsk when "it stopped communicating" around 5 p.m. local time (10 a.m. GMT), regional authorities said in a statement.

Citing airline sources, TASS said the plane passed all technical checks but a SiLA executive told TASS the plane was delayed for ten hours due to bad weather conditions.

According to Interfax, the plane that disappeared on Friday was built in 1989. It was operated by the national company Aeroflot, then in Kyrgyzstan before entering service at SiLA in 2014. This type of short-haul aircraft has a capacity of 17 passengers.

Poorly observed safety rules

This disaster comes just over a week after another accident involving an Antonov. On July 6, an An-26 crashed on landing in the Kamchatka Peninsula (Far East), killing all 28 people on board.

Mainly manufactured in the Soviet era, Antonovs are still used throughout the former USSR in civil and military aviation. They have been involved in several fatal accidents in recent years.

Despite an improvement, security is an issue

Russia has significantly improved its aviation safety since the 2000s as the country's major airlines ditched their Soviet planes for more modern planes.

However, maintenance problems and sometimes lax compliance with safety rules still pose problems, especially in remote areas of the country where planes or helicopters are preferred to connect isolated localities.

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