If you’re spending today stuck at the airport with your flight delayed or canceled because of inclement weather, spare a thought for the some hardy souls in Siberia: While East Coast airports brace themselves for a much-hyped winter storm, passengers at the Igarka airport above the Arctic Circle showed that no force of nature can thwart human determination.
When their 30-plus-ton Tupolev plane, scheduled to leave for the region’s capital Krasnoyarsk, froze to the ground, many among the 74 passengers, including many oil workers traveling home, used their bare (well, hopefully gloved) hands to push it back, holding onto its wings. All in the balmy -61 F weather.
The Independent reports that a transport official in West Siberia said that the braking system got jammed because of the cold, and the tug-truck failed to dislodge the plane, “so friendly passengers agreed to help and they soon safely left for home.”
In a video posted online, a Russian website reported, a passenger is heard saying that “several things make a real man’s life worth living: Writing a book, planting a tree, or at least bracing one’s muscles to help an immobilized passenger plane take to the skies.” Another put it in less grandiose terms: “We just want to get back home.”