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Reserve Air China plane to arrive in Nizhnevartovsk at 2:00 p.m. Moscow time

Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency specified that the preliminary cause of the sudden landing is the malfunction of one of the engines

MOSCOW, August 26. /TASS/. A reserve plane of Air China Airlines will land in the Russian city of Nizhnevartovsk at 2:00 p.m. Moscow time (11:00 a.m. GMT) and depart for London at 6:00 p.m. Moscow time (3:00 p.m. GMT), Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya) reported.

The aircraft was traveling from London to Beijing and carried out an unscheduled landing at the airport of Nizhnevartovsk in the Khanty-Mansi Region.

The agency specified that the preliminary cause of the unexpected landing is the malfunction of one of the engines. The crew sent the urgency PAN signal and requested permission to land.

"Air China has decided to send a reserve aircraft to Nizhnevartovsk. It is expected to arrive at 2:00 p.m. Moscow time and leave for London at 6:00 p.m. Moscow time," the agency said in a statement.

It added that air traffic controllers from the subordinate state corporation for air traffic management reacted to the urgency signal in a timely manner and swiftly provided the crew with information on the closest alternate airfields capable of receiving the aircraft. Thus, specialists from the corporation’s northern Siberian branch provided navigational assistance along the shortest route possible to Nizhnevartovsk as well as informed the crew about the current meteorological situation at the airfield chosen and the parameters of its runway.

"Thanks to the professionalism and coordinated work, Boeing 777-300 successfully landed at Nizhnevartovsk airfield 60 minutes after sending the PAN signal," the agency noted.

It specified that 265 people, 15 crew members and 250 passengers, were onboard the Air China plane.

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