YEKATERINBURG, August 20. /TASS/. The Ural Airlines have paid the first compensations to 73 passengers of the Airbus A321, which was forced to belly-land in a cornfield near Moscow on August 15, the airline’s press service told TASS on Tuesday.

"Seventy-three passengers received payments, other applications are being processed now," the service said.

On August 19, the airline’s CEO Sergei Skuratov told TASS that the compensations had begun to be transferred. The company will pay 100,000 rubles ($1,500) to each passenger for emotional distress.

On Thursday, the Ural Airlines Airbus A321 was heading to Simferopol from Moscow when it made a belly landing near Zhukovsky International Airport. According to the Federal Air Transport Agency and the airline, the plane struck a flock of birds shortly after takeoff. Both of the aircraft’s engines sucked in some of them and caught fire. There were over 230 people aboard the aircraft, of them 226 passengers including 41 children.

The crew managed to land the plane in a cornfield and evacuate all passengers. According to latest data of the Health Ministry, a total of 76 people, including 19 children, were injured in the emergency landing. One woman was hospitalized.