Alrosa’s Crash Landed Tu-154 Takes Off Again

The Tu-154 belonging to Alrosa which crash landed to an abandoned airfield last September, took off from it yesterday.

Photo courtesy bnkomi.ru

The incident occured on 7th September, when the Alrosa Minry Air Tupolev TU-154M, bearing reg RA-85684, was operating flight 6R 514 from Polyarny to Moscow Domodedovo. While en route, with 72 passengers and 9 crew on board, the aircraft suffered a compete failure of electric power resulting in loss of navigation devices and fuel pumps at 37,400 feet. The crew decided to land the aircraft on the abandoned 1200m runway in the city of Izhma. A Tu-154 usually needs at least a 2,050m landing field and the aircraft ended up overrunning the runway by about 150m. The aircraft ran into some woods and received substantial damage, however noone on-board was hurt. The Russian Minister of Transport met the crew and thanked them for their heroic attempts.

Photo courtesy EMKOM

After six months from the crash, following repairs, the aircraft yesterday took off from the abandoned airfield on its own power.

Photo courtesy bnkomi.ru

On command was the heroic captain Ruben Yesayan. A Tu-154 usually requires about 2,100m for takeoff and the Alrosa aircraft was taken off with 11 tons of fuel on board using a distance of 800m. The aircraft safely flew to Ukhta for re-fuelling, on a low level flight with gears down. The aircraft was further flown to Samara where it will undergo final repair work prior to entering into service again. A video of the take-off could be seen below. The Tu-154M is the most modern member of the Tu-154 family, having flown for the first time in 1982.