Siberians Stuck on Frozen Plane Had to Get Out and Push
A flight from from Siberia's Igarka airport to Krasnoyarsk, the regional capital, was delayed due to temperatures of minus 52 Celsius. The plane was literally frozen on the runway. But the 70 passengers on board, who had already waited one day for their flight, refused to be grounded so easily: They got out and pushed.
"We just want to get back home," said one of the men working to free the frozen 30-ton aircraft.
The plane might have been able to take off, but the grease on the landing gear wasn't rated for such low temperatures, which caused the brake pads to freeze up, the Siberian Times reported.
Airport officials denied that the passengers—mostly oil workers on their way home from shifts in the Arctic—were actually responsible for moving the plane, saying it was just a social media stunt.
"Most likely, the plane's passengers, oil workers, decided to do a kind of 'selfie'. It was a good joke and it became a big thing on the Internet," airport chief Maxim Aksyonov told the Siberian Times.
But one of the men on board maintains passengers were asked to help because a tractor truck couldn't budge the aircraft alone.
"We pushed it a short distance, about five meters, maybe more," he said.
Not much, but good enough to get home. The flight was able to take off safely and made it to Krasnoyarsk without further incident.
