Incident in Moskau Sheremetyevo
Tanker crashes into an Aeroflot Airbus A321
On the very first day of the restart of international connections, an incident occurred in Moscow Sheremetyevo. One person was injured.
Since Saturday (August, 1st) Russia has allowed air traffic to selected destinations again. The EU is not yet among them. But the restart could have gone better, at least at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. An Airbus A321 was heavily damaged there in an incident.
A tanker truck drove into the national airline’s medium-haul aircraft. On pictures the nose of the plane appears to have dents and a crack. But the vehicle looks much worse. According to a statement from the airport, the plane was parked and there were no crew or passengers on board. However, the driver of the tanker was injured in the accident.
Aeroflot Airbus A321 (VP-BAX) was seriously damaged while parking at Moscow-Sheremetyevo Intl AP (UUEE), Russia when a fuel tanker crashed underneath the nose. The driver cabin was demolished. The driver sustained injuries. @DixiNews @engpravdahttps://t.co/jkln5QLWbR pic.twitter.com/TthT1pP9ia
— JACDEC (@JacdecNew) August 1, 2020
Only limited air traffic possible
Authorities are now investigating how the incident happened. According to various Russian media, the damage to the plane is so severe that it cannot take off for the time being. However, since flight operations are still severely restricted, this should not be a major operational challenge. International flights are currently only permitted from Russia to Great Britain, Tanzania and Turkey.