Hero Pilot Lands Plane in a Cornfield, Saving 233 Passengers

• A Russian pilot has been hailed as a true hero as he crash-landed a plane after both engines were damaged during take-off.
• Captain Damir Yusupov landed the plane on a cornfield just a mile away from the airport, saving 233 lives.
• Amazingly, he had only been flying as a primary pilot for over a year before the incident.

Talk about a miracle landing. A Russian pilot is being touted a hero after he successfully landed a passenger plane on a cornfield after a flock of birds got sucked into two of its engines. Amazingly, the move saved all 233 passengers on board the plane.

Captain Damir Yusupov was the pilot of Ural Airlines Flight U1678 that took off from Moscow’s Zhukovsky airport heading for Simferopol, Crimea. As the plane flew, it suffered a double bird strike that caused one engine to burst into flames. To make matters worse, the other engine also stopped working. Despite all this, the 41-year-old pilot managed to crash-land the plane in a cornfield a mile away from the airport.

Captain Yusopov has since been awarded the top Russian medal by Vladimir Putin.

Captain Yusupov had actually radioed the airport as soon as the plane’s engines failed to work. He asked to make an emergency landing but later realized he was not going to make it. The quick-thinking hero pilot then decided to bring the plane down on a cornfield to save everyone on board. Amazingly, he managed the feat with no power in either engine and with the landing gear retracted.

Ural Airlines Flight U1678 had 226 passengers and seven cabin crew, all of whom were relatively unharmed. Although 23 people had to be brought to the hospital for minor injuries, only a 69-year-old woman required immediate treatment. Luckily, she is also recovering well since the incident.

Not surprisingly, Captain Yusupov is being considered a hero. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov issued a statement about the heroic pilot and his brave crew.

“He and his team saved 233 lives. They are heroes,” Peskov said. “The plane’s passengers and crew remained alive, we wish a speedy recovery to those injured, and congratulations to the hero pilots who saved lives and landed the plane.”

Interestingly, Captain Yusupov has only been flying as a primary pilot for over a year before the incident. He had initially studied to become a lawyer but decided to pursue his dream of being a pilot.

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