It might sounds as suspenseful story when passengers due to take a flight in Siberia had to get down and push the aircraft just after its brake pads froze solid.
Passengers in Igarka, a small town in the far north of Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region, learned that their plane had become stuck to the ground as temperatures plunged to minus 52C (-59F), The Siberian Times reports.
A video then shows them pushing the wings to get the plane moving. The plane was a Tupolev 134 operated by Katekavia, a subsidiary of Utair, one of Russia’s biggest airlines.
An official at the local prosecutor’s office, Oksana Gorbunova, told Interfax news agency that an investigation would be opened to find out why the passengers had got out and pushed the plane.
He said: “They pushed the plane as if it was a car that had got stuck, which is categorically forbidden as it can damage the plane’s exterior, for example.”
When the plane literally froze on the ground at Igarka airport, above the Arctic Circle, fearing the UTair service to regional capital Krasnoyarsk could be delayed, many of the 70 passengers used brute strength to free the 30-ton Tupolev 134, The Siberian Times reported.
Men are heard shouting: 'Come on, push!' As one was heard saying on a video of the incident: 'Real men can plant a tree, build a house, and push a plane.'
Another added: 'We just want to get back home.'
Finally, the plane took off and landed safely in the regional centre of Krasnoyarsk.
