Ural Airlines Airbus A320 plane in the wheat field to be completely dismantled before March this year.

• The Ural Airlines plane that made an emergency landing in a wheat field in September 2023 will be completely dismantled by February 2025.
• It was flying from Sochi to Omsk, but the hydraulics on board failed. There were no casualties during the landing.
• After the accident, the plane, that was being prepared to take-off from the wheat field, spent almost a year and a half in the open air. 
• The airworthiness certificate of the plane that landed in the wheat field was cancelled in October 2024.

Ural Airlines is completing work to dismantle the plane that landed in a wheat field in the Novosibirsk region, the company's Telegram channel reported. The complete dismantling of the vessel will be completed in February 2025.

"Currently, the airline's engineering and technical staff is completing work on dismantling parts and units from the Airbus A320 aircraft with tail number RA-73805. (...) The airline plans to completely remove all elements of the aircraft from the field no later than February 2025," the statement said.

At the moment, the engines with all the attachments, hoods and reversers, landing gear struts have been dismantled, all the electronics have been removed. The fuselage, wings and tail unit are ready for disposal.

Dismantling of the aircraft parts and units began in September 2024 with an aim that the aircraft parts and sub-assmblies will be retested and can be used for their intended purpose in the future. The damaged parts could be repaired or disposed of.

The company's press service reported that the interior elements of the passenger cabin and cockpit were removed and sent to Yekaterinburg back in October 2024 after the aircraft take-off plan from the wheat field did not materialize.

The removed components will now undergo a procedure of inspection and assessment for serviceability. In Yekaterinburg, after the appropriate assessment and testing, a decision will be made on which of them can be used further.

Sergei Skuratov, who was the airline's CEO at the time, said that the plane would be dismantled for spare parts:

"The plane was insured. We are paid the insurance amount and are granted the right to dismantle it and use the spare parts. Therefore, we leave part of the insurance with the insurers as payment for these spare parts," he said.

The Ural Airlines A320, flying from Sochi to Omsk on September 12, 2023, failed to land at its destination. The plane suffered a failure of one of its hydraulic systems, and the pilots decided to divert to an alternate airfield in Novosibirsk, which has a longer runway.

However, due to strong winds and the landing gear being deployed, fuel consumption increased, so the pilots decided to land the plane in a wheat field in the Ubinsky District of the Novosibirsk Region. There were 161 passengers and 6 crew members on board, no one was injured.

In the begining, the Russian carrier considered various options for what to do with the stranded aircraft, including the option of ferrying it, but then it would have been necessary to build a temporary runway.

Sanctions from Europe which led to no support from the aircraft manufacturer Airbus, is also being seen as another contributory factor towards failing to ferry the aircraft from the wheat field.

Russian aviation regulatory body, Rosaviatsiya, has revoked the aircraft's airworthiness certificate. Currently, the Ural Airlines fleet consists of 51 Airbus aircraft: 22 A320, 14 A321, four A319, three A320neo, and eight A321neo.

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