Hmmmmm....A Russian passenger plane has crashed into a main road after overshooting a runway at a Moscow airport, killing at least four people, police say.
Reports said there were between eight and 12 crew on board the Red Wings Tupolev-204, flight number RWZ9268, which was landing at Vnukovo airport.
Images of the scene show the aircraft split into several pieces, with the cockpit on the road.
Four people were severely injured, emergency officials said.
The dead were two pilots, a flight engineer and an air stewardess.
The plane's tail and cockpit had broken off but the fuselage was largely intact.
There were fire engines at the scene and smoke could be seen rising from parts of the wreckage.
The plane had arrived in Moscow from the Czech Republic, government officials said.
Eventually the queue started forming for our second flight. So we joined it. Looking around at the other people I got the impression that some, most even, had been spending their roubles in the Shanghai Xmas sales, and had forgotten to check in their boxes of purchases at the luggage check in.
Amazingly all the Ruskies we had seen, which seemed to be mainly middle-aged male gangsters and incredibly beautiful seven foot tall gangsters molls, were not toting their luggage up the wrong aisle, this was their hand luggage! I couldn’t believe my eyes, each person had more in hand luggage than we had as our total luggage for our five week holiday. I fully expected to see people bring live goats and boxes of chickens onto the plane. There were a few raised voices when this lot was being stowed I’ll tell you. Though as the raised voices were all Russian it sounded like a shouting contest in which people were only allowed to talk backwards.
Adding to this impression was the plane itself. It was an ageing Tupolev, it was like stepping back in time to about 1978. There was no seat back TV screens, just TVs at the ends of each aisle. The air-hostesses looked like the Russian shot putting team from the 1956 Olympics. Oh boy, ten hours of this! Fun and games to look forward to then.
On take off the landing gear had some difficulty retracting, and when it finally made it into the hold there was a massive “THUD!” which we felt through our seats. Not exactly reassuring.
The first incident of the flight happened when a fat guy tried reclining his seat, and ended up with his head on Hatch's lap. To be fair he did apologise profusely, in fluent Russian, and kept his seat near vertical for the rest of the trip. Then the TV ”entertainment” fired up. I found it hard to believe that the first offering was “Home Alone” dubbed in Russian. “Home Alone” wasn’t even funny in 1990. Luckily the tape snapped. Yes, the tape, it was on whatever the Ruskie version of VHS tape is. And it fucking snapped.
Then they showed a Russian (melo)drama about some woman who robbed the bank she was working at in order to keep her boyfriend screwing her. Or at least that’s my interpretation of it, it may have been Dostoyevsky’s critique of Western capitalism for all I know. It was a couple of hours/days long, and featured some blonde, or at least badly dyed peroxide blonde, who spent her screen time staring into space wistfully, while it snowed. We then had some prehistoric Tom and Jerry cartoons.
Following this they switched the TVs off, and turned all the lights out. Nighty night kiddies!
I was woken buy a shot putter thrusting a red hot tin tray into my hand. It contained a fruit omelette for breakfast. I ate it, and wished I hadn’t. Luckily I had some zucchini balls left so I ate those too.
“Ooh look it’s snowing,” said Hatch pointing out of the window. “Snowing” is too delicate a word for what was happening outside, it was a blizzard. Then I remembered the noise the landing gear had made, shit! I didn’t mention this to the two girls, though Hen definitely gave me a; “So the flights were cheap then eh?” look.
With another hollow, bone numbing, thud, the landing gear went down, much gripping of seat arms was engendered. We landed sideways, the plane turned left, then right, then back left, and skidded to a halt. I have never been thrown about so much on a landing, or been so glad to be on the deck. The round of applause the pilot got from all and sundry was truly heartfelt.
Moscow customs was a doddle, no one really seemed to give a fuck. We walked miles to the new terminal F. There I bought some Vodka, a litre and a half of it, for the equivalent of $4.00 Au. I noticed that everything was priced in Roubles or Euros, and vowed to come armed with armfuls of Euro on the return trip.