He worked as a lawyer, and dreamed about the sky: the story of a pilot landing a falling plane in Russia

Damir Yusupov is a pilot of an aircraft of Ural Airlines, which made an emergency landing on a corn field, after a liner collided with a flock of seagulls on takeoff, the birds fell into both engines, one of them caught fire, the second lost traction. Edition Meduza wrote the story of a hero pilot.

Photo: Facebook / Yusupov Damir

Crew landed a plane with engines offfull of fuel tanks and a retracted landing gear in a cornfield near the village of Rybaki, about a kilometer from the airport runway. 55 people were injured during landing. No one died. Passengers were evacuated from the cabin by inflatable ramps.

Media and social media users compare crew commander Damir Yusupov with U.S. pilot Chesley Sullenberger, who in 2009 landed a plane on the Hudson River - after a collision with a flock of birds and the failure of both engines. This incident is known as the Miracle on the Hudson.

Photo: Facebook / Yusupov Damir

Damir Yusupov landed a plane on a manual control

The co-pilot Georgy Murzin said that the crew commander Damir Yusupov put the A321 on a manual control: “After take-off, the birds got into the engines, the left engine died out immediately, then they got into the second engine too, and the speed became unstable, the second one died out, there wasn’t enough traction , and the height gradually fell. Landed in the field on manual control. "

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At the same time, the plane landed “smoothly” and none of the passengers received serious injuries, said passenger Svetlana Babin, who was aboard the Airbus A321. “After the plane landed, everyone applauded the pilot,” she added.

Photo: Facebook / Yusupov Damir

According to a friend of Yusupov, who works at another airline, the landing quality of the A321 suggests that the pilot brought his actions in such situations “to automatism on simulators”.

The telegram channel Mash published a video in which Yusupov, after landing and evacuation, explains to passengers through a megaphone what to do next: go “to the right, in the sun, along the rows of corn”.

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Yusupov began to study as a pilot after 30 years. Prior to that, he was a municipal lawyer in Syzran.

Yusupov was born in the city of Igarka, Krasnoyarsk Territory, and in the 1990's his family moved to Syzran, Samara Region. Now the 41 pilot is one year old.

In 2017, Damir himself said that he had loved flying since childhood: his father was a crew commander in a Mi-8 helicopter. However, upon admission to the flight school, Yusupov did not pass the medical examination. As a result, he learned to be a lawyer, but did not stop dreaming about flying.

Photo: Facebook / Yusupov Damir

Data on the beginning of Yusupov's flying career diverge. According to one information, until 33 years, Yusupov worked as a lawyer in the Syzran administration. The mayor’s office specified that he was an employee of the Syzran Housing and Mortgage Fund, as well as the deputy head of the Tatar city autonomy. According to other sources, Yusupov entered the Buguruslan Civil Aviation School at the age of 32, and graduated with honors. According to the Syzran City Hall, in 33 of the year he had already graduated from this school.

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And in 2013, he also graduated with honors from St. Petersburg State University of Civil Aviation - and right after the university he was hired by Ural Airlines, the airline said. In 2018, Yusupov received his second specialty, graduating from the Ulyanovsk Institute of Civil Aviation in the direction of “air navigation”.

Yusupov drives Airbus A320, 319, 321 aircraft, flew across Russia, to China, Central Asia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Tunisia, Egypt. He drove charter hockey team Ak Bars and the football team Rubin, as well as the Russian national figure skating team. Its flight time, according to the airline, is about three thousand hours (this is not much: it is only twice as much as the required minimum for obtaining the position of aircraft commander).

Photo: Facebook / Yusupov Damir

He also met his wife Natalia on the plane when he flew as a passenger. They have two children. After landing, he called her from an unfamiliar number and said that “everything is fine” and “everyone is alive,” said Yusupov’s wife. Brother Yusupov said that he became the commander of the ship only a year ago. The former Ural Airlines flight attendant, who flew with Yusupov, described him as "a very good, courageous, very responsible and kind person with a good sense of humor."

The Governor of the Sverdlovsk Region Yevgeny Kuyvashev (Ural Airlines is based in this region) published photos of Yusupov and other crew members, urging them to submit them for awards. Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov called the pilots heroes.

Until the end of the investigation, Yusupov and the rest of the crew were suspended, but this is a standard procedure for investigating such situations.

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