Passenger plane lands safely in Russia after engine fails

A Boeing 737 plane carrying 78 passengers plus crew landed safely at the main airport in Russia's second city of St. Petersburg on Wednesday (25/03) after one of its engines failed.

"The plane made a safe landing ... no passengers were injured," Russian airline UTair, which operated the flight, said in a statement.

UTair is Russia's third-largest airline by passenger numbers and is more than 60 percent owned by a pension fund of oil company Surgutneftegaz. It carried 11.2 million passengers in 2014, up 7 percent on 2013.

The economic crisis has hit the company hard - it is being sued by a number of creditors over unpaid debts and defaulted on seven bond issues worth a combined 10 billion rubles late last year.

It has asked for state guarantees to help restructure its debt which stands at around 168 billion rubles ($2.95 billion), including 85.2 billion in leasing liabilities.

Source: reuters.com