So what do they have? No electricity on board, all equipment down, no airport in sight, and
only a half-forgotten runway deep in the Siberian snow forest. It’s hard to imagine a worse
scenario for a passenger plane landing, so it’s a real miracle that everyone ended
up safe and sound. And all of it thanks to… a glass of water.
Flight 516 was scheduled for September 7, 2010 as a regular flight from Udachny, Russia,
to Moscow. The plane had been used for 20 years, but it had never suffered a single
accident before, so the cabin crew had no doubts the flight would be easy. Passengers
got on board the plane; flight attendants nonchalantly checked their boarding passes;
everything went as usual. The first pilot greeted everyone, and the flight began.
The crew noticed the first signs of trouble while the plane was over a small town of Usinsk
in Siberia. The electronic equipment started acting abnormally, but the pilots shrugged
it off as a nuisance and continued the flight. Air traffic control also neglected the problem.
The aircraft captain, Yevgeny Novosyolov, made an announcement for the passengers to
remain calm: the plane was going through a slight turbulence, and the flight could get
a little rough for a short time. And it worked: there was no commotion on board, the people
trusted their pilot. However, just 8 minutes after the announcement,
the lights in the cabin went off. Only the flight attendants paid any attention to it,
believing everything was alright. In the cockpit, though, the situation immediately became desperate.
It wasn’t just the lights that shut down; all the electronics on board suddenly went
out, basically leaving the pilots to their own devices.
Without the equipment, the plane became crippled. It was still operable, but all the navigational
systems refused to work, the radio went offline, and the fuel transfer pumps were also lost.
This resulted in pilots having to navigate using only their visuals, and the fuel that
remained usable could only keep the plane in the air for about 30 minutes. The situation
was critical. The time was not enough for the flight to get to the nearest airport even
in otherwise perfect condition, but with all the electronics gone, finding a good spot
to land — and land there safely, for that matter, — was next to impossible.
The pilots had to use all their experience and expertise to keep the plane steady. When
the electrical failure occurred, the aircraft was high above the clouds at 34,780 ft (10,600
m). The crew had to get below the curtain to see the ground in case they needed to make
an emergency landing, but also to turn on the auxiliary generator that couldn’t function
at high altitudes. Without any means to control the angle at which they descended, they used
an old and almost forgotten trick: a glass of water put on the control panel.
Taking turns, the pilots watched the water in the glass and measured the angle of descent
by its incline. This perfectly simple but genius solution made it possible to get as
far down as 9,840 ft (3,000 m), at which level the pilots were finally able to try and switch
on the generator. As misfortune would have it, the attempt failed. No electricity still.
The crew didn’t lose hope, though, and as they could see the ground now, they scanned
it for a place to land. As Captain Novosyolov later said in an interview, it was a pure
stroke of luck that they saw a landing strip near the town of Izhma. It was an old airport
that had been abandoned for a long time and closed for any aircraft except helicopters.
No radio, no air traffic control — nothing was left there. Except one man: airport supervisor
Sergey Sotnikov. All in all, what happened in the next few
minutes can only be described as a miracle. You see, despite the abandonment of the airport,
Sotnikov, of his own will, kept the runway in a good condition for all those years. He
cut down the emerging brush, swept away garbage, and even drew the runway marking when it faded.
That’s why the pilots of the unfortunate plane were able to notice it in the first
place — and you could only imagine their surprise at this finding, because this airport
was not even on the maps anymore. However, the length of the runway in Izhma
was only 4,347 ft (1,325 m), while this airplane needs 6,560 ft (2,000 m) to land safely. Moreover,
the speed at which the aircraft was going down was much greater than safety instructions
allowed: 236 mph (380 kph) against the safe 168 mph (270 kph). That was because the flaps
could only be controlled via electrical switches. All odds were against the cabin crew of the
plane, but now they at least had a chance. They didn’t need to land in the forest any
longer, risking the lives of everyone on board, so they used the sudden opportunity to their
advantage. It took the airplane three attempts at landing
before it finally hit the runway. The first two ended in the pilots returning the aircraft
for another circuit. They assessed all the risks and were very careful in their actions.
As it was later noted in the official investigation, this carefulness might have saved dozens of
lives. Before the last attempt at landing, all passengers
and the cabin crew were transferred to the front of the plane to be ready for an emergency
evacuation. And there was still no panic! As the crew recalls, everyone was calm and
serious, absolutely understanding that something big was going on, and their lives were at
stake. People were waiting patiently in their seats and didn’t make a sound.
Finally, the pilots committed and brought the plane down on the runway. The landing
gear almost went ablaze from the friction, but still it didn’t help the plane to stop
before the runway ended. The aircraft ran through all of it and rammed into the forest,
going another 520 ft (160 m) before stopping completely. The trees damaged the plane but
also slowed down its advance, which was part of the miracle. The machine came to a screeching,
bumping halt. The emergency escape slides were dispatched. And all 72 passengers along
with all 9 crew members safely went down to the ground. None of them were even slightly
injured. So, against all odds, with none of the plane’s
electrical systems working, with no proper runway to land on, with a speed that should
have crashed the aircraft into the forest, and without even the means to tell anyone
they were having an emergency, the heroic pilots still landed the plane and saved everyone’s
lives. The lucky passengers and crew were transported
by helicopters to nearby Ukhta, from where they went on to Moscow by another plane, and
only one family decided they’d had enough air travel for a lifetime and took a train
instead. But whatever the passengers chose, all of them signed a collective letter to
the government to grant decorations to the cabin crew. They all agreed that the professionalism
they showed on board prevented the tragedy. On October 8, 2010, a month after the event,
Sergey Novosyolov and his co-pilot Andrey Lamanov were made Heroes of the Russian Federation,
while the rest of the cabin crew received the Orders of Courage. Not forgotten was another
hero without whose diligence and dedication the safe landing of Flight 516 would’ve
been impossible. Sergey Sotnikov, the supervisor of the Izhma airport, received his decorations
in February 2012. But what happened to the airplane after it
delivered its passengers and crew to safety? At first the government wanted to put it out
of use and dismantle it. The arguments were that even if the aircraft was repaired after
all the damage it received, it would be unable to take off from the runway in Izhma. It was
still too short for such a big and heavy airplane. However, it was later decided that the plane
could be rescued, after all. And indeed, in March 2011, after all the immediately necessary
repairs were finished, the airline owning the plane managed to fly it to another station
where it could be repaired completely. After that, the aircraft continued performing
flights for another 7 years. It received its own nickname, Izhma, and in September 2018
it flew for the last time. Part of its old crew from 2010 was on board, while the former
captain met his old friend on the ground. That was how, after almost 30 years of service,
the heroic airplane said its goodbyes. Do you know any other amazing stories of miracles
in the air? Sound off in the comments below! If you learned something new today, then give
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