Russia Plane Crash-Lands In Cornfield After Flying Into Flock Of Gulls; 23 Injured

A Russian passenger jet crash-landed in a cornfield outside Moscow’s Zhukovsky International Airport after it flew into a flock of birds on Thursday.

The Ministry of Health informed that 23 people had suffered injuries, but nobody had been killed when the Ural Airlines Airbus 321 came down in a field southeast of Moscow after striking a flock of gulls, disrupting its engines. The plane was traveling from Moscow to Crimea's Simferopol with 234 people on board, as per The Moscow Times.

The injured including 9 children have been hospitalized.

Even though one of the engines caught fire after the birds were sucked into them, the fire didn't spread into the passenger cabin.

The airline in a statement said that the plane was significantly damaged and won’t perform flights in the near future, reported TASS.

According to Interfax, Russia's Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case into violation of air traffic safety and aircraft operation rules following the landing.