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What we know about the crew of the belly-landed A321 near Moscow

The plane collided with a flock of seagulls shortly after takeoff

Damir Yusupov Mikhail Metzel/TASS

Damir Yusupov

© Mikhail Metzel/TASS

TASS-FACTBOX, August 15. /TASS/. On August 15, 2019 a passenger jet Airbus A321 of the Ural Airlines left Moscow’s Zhukovsky Airport for Simferopol only to make a belly landing on a farm field in the Ramenskoye District of the Moscow Region. The air transport agency Rosaviatsiya said the plane had collided with a flock of seagulls. Both of the plane’s engines went dead, the air carrier said. There were more than 230 people on board. Fatalities were avoided, the Moscow Region’s office of the Emergencies’ Ministry said. Fifty five people, including nine children, were hurt.

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Here are some details of the plane’s pilots from the social networks and other open sources.

Damir Yusupov, the plane’s captain. Born September 13, 1977 in the city of Igarka, the Krasnoyarsk Region, to the family of a helicopter pilot. In 1996, graduated from a polytechnic college in Syzran and was drafted into the army. In 2005, received legal education and up to 32 years worked as a lawyer in Syzran. Then joined P.F. Yeromasov Civil Aviation Flight School in Buguruslan (a subsidiary of the St. Petersburg State University of Civil Aviation) and graduated with honors in 2013. Upon graduation took an air pilot’s job at the Urals Airlines. In 2018, completed a distance learning air navigation course at the B.P. Bugayev Ulyanovsk Institute of Civil Aviation. Has a flight record of more than 3,000 hours. Promoted to aircraft captain in 2018. Married with four children.

Georgy Murzin, the copilot. Born on June 3, 1996. In 2017, graduated from the St. Petersburg Civil Aviation Institute. Began a career in the Ural Airlines in 2018. Has a flight record of more than 600 hours.

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