Ural Airlines To Part Out A320 Stuck In Siberian Wheat Field

Russia’s Ural Airlines will strip down its Airbus A320 that has been stuck in a wheat field near Novosibirsk, Siberia, since making an emergency landing last September.

“All decisions have been made ... we will be paid the insurance amount and given the right to dismantle it for parts to use as spares,” Ural Airlines retiring founder and CEO Sergey Skuratov told journalists on Aug. 8.

The A320 with 167 people onboard was heading across Russia from Sochi to Omsk on Sept. 12, 2023, when it was diverted to Novosibirsk after its green hydraulics system failed. As the aircraft was running out of fuel, the crew elected to land on unprepared terrain. No injuries were reported following the emergency landing.

Ural Airlines had planned to fly the aircraft out of the field, but the logistics proved too challenging. The part-out process will start within two weeks and be completed next spring. With international sanctions making it challenging for Russian carriers to otherwise source spare parts, Ural Airlines will use the parts to keep other A320s in its fleet flying.

Ural Airlines’ remaining fleet includes 51 airliners: four A319s, 22 A320s, three A320neos, 14 A321s and eight A321neos. Two of those aircraft have been grounded as certain components reached the end of their lifespan, Skuratov said.

Nevertheless, the CEO hopes that the airline can keep its traffic at 2023 levels, when it carried 9.4 million passengers. “As of today, we are up 7% compared with 2023, but the second half of the year is still ahead,” Skuratov said.

The airline retained its domestic network and serves some international destinations in China, Dubai, Turkey and all the Central Asian countries, but does not have the capacity for further expansion. “We simply don't have any available fleet, and there are endless problems with engines, spare parts and other issues because Russia is under sanctions,” Skuratov explained.

Skuratov, 74, was speaking to reporters in conjunction with his retirement as CEO. He had run Ural Airlines since setting the carrier up in 1993. On the same day, Aug. 8, a meeting of the airline’s board appointed his son Kirill Skuratov, 49, as the airline’s new CEO. Kirill has served as Ural Airlines deputy CEO and commercial director for the past decade.