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First planes arrive at Russia’s Kaliningrad airport after jet incident

"The airport is working in a normal regime, dispatching and receiving planes," the spokeswoman said

KALININGRAD, January 5. /TASS/. The first two passenger planes from Moscow and St. Petersburg have arrived at Khrabrovo Airport in Russian’s westernmost city of Kaliningrad after an incident with an Aeroflot airliner, airport spokeswoman Natalia Gritsun told TASS on Thursday.

"The first planes have arrived in Kaliningrad from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo and Petersburg’s Pulkovo air harbors and the airport is working in a normal regime, dispatching and receiving planes," the spokeswoman said.

Khrabrovo Airport CEO Alexander Korytny told TASS that the local air harbor expected coordinated measures with airlines to ensure flight departures and arrivals for all passengers whose flights had been delayed on December 4 after a plane incident. According to the CEO, the number of these passengers waiting for their arrival or departure equaled about 6,000 people.

Plane’s incident at Khrabrovo airport

Aeroflot’s Airbus A-320 was en route from Moscow carrying 167 passengers and five crew members, when it overshot a runway by five meters (16.4 feet) landing at Khrabrovo Airport in Kaliningrad during a heavy snowstorm on the night of January 3.

The nose landing gear of the plane reportedly gave way as the passenger jet overshot the landing strip and got stuck in a turf.

All the passengers and crew members were safely evacuated via inflatable chutes of the aircraft.

The airport, however, had been closed since the incident, which reportedly left stranded over 1,500 passengers in Kaliningrad.

The Russian Investigative Committee opened a criminal probe into the incident.

Khrabrovo Airport resumed its operations on Thursday morning, a senior local official said.

"Everything is normal, we are opening the airport at 6:00 a.m. (4:00 a.m. GMT), three Aeroflot flights are ready to take off for Sheremetyevo, the damaged aircraft is already in a hangar, the landing and take-off strip is in a bnormal condition and we are expecting at 7:30 an arrival of an Aeroflot flight from Moscow," Valeria Rodina quoted acting Governor of the Kaliningrad Region Anton Alikhanov as saying.