The pilot who landed the plane in the field told about the choice of landing site

Pilot Sergey Belov, who landed the plane in a field near Novosibirsk in 2023 and became a defendant in a criminal case, made an emergency landing due to too much fuel consumption. He told about it on Thursday, September 18.

According to the pilot, during the flight to Novosibirsk, it was noted that the fuel consumption was too high. It became clear that the airliner would not reach the airport, and it was too late to return to Omsk. Wanting to save lives (there were 167 people on board: 161 passengers, including 23 children, and 6 crew members), the pilots decided to land the plane on an aerial landing site. It turned out to be very difficult to find such a place in conditions of a huge workload and operational stress: there were forests and swamps all around.

The co-pilot saw a country road, but it wasn't safe enough. Belov, in turn, noticed a flat field. Having considered all the available options, the pilots settled on this choice.

"I switched the controls to manual mode. The co—pilot was clearly fulfilling his tasks, helping me," he said in an interview. Lenta.Ru .

Belov stressed that finding a suitable site from the air is a difficult task even for military specialists. And for the linear crew, who in the vast majority of cases fly by instruments, such a search and landing is an almost impossible task, since they do not practice such actions on simulators.

"In real life, the risk was extremely high, but thanks to the training and teamwork of the crew, we successfully landed the plane," he said.

Take-off time: Russia wants to strengthen the training of pilots of light aircraft

The system of state examinations for pilots can be built by analogy with passing a driver's license.

Earlier, on September 15, Belov filed a motion to postpone the trial in Omsk. It is noted that the reason for the postponement is the residence in Omsk of the majority of victims and witnesses, RT reports.

On September 12, 2023, the crew of an Airbus A320 passenger plane en route from Sochi to Omsk sounded an alarm. According to the recording of the pilots' conversations, which is available to Izvestia, one of them reported a loss of hydraulics. Then the airliner made an emergency landing in a field.

There were more than 165 people on board at the time, none of them were seriously injured. The passengers were taken to a temporary accommodation facility located in the district recreation center. Five passengers sought medical help. The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case into the incident.

All important news is on the Izvestia channel in the MAX messenger.