Phuket-Barnaul Passenger Details Emergency Landing in China
Passengers on the diverted flight were assisted in China for approximately ten hours.
Yevgeny Shavkun, a passenger on the Phuket–Barnaul flight who was forced to land in China, told NGS22.RU what happened on board.
According to him, while the plane was circling and burning fuel, passengers were not informed about what was happening — apparently, there were no external signs of any malfunctions.
— While we were circling, we were only told that the plane was not landing due to technical faults — it wasn«t clear which ones, but we started to guess that if the plane was burning off fuel, something serious was happening.
However, according to Yevgeny, there was no severe panic on board, and people behaved quite calmly. The Barnaul resident himself was flying back from vacation with his wife, who was very frightened by the news of the malfunction.
— On board, everyone behaved quite calmly; of course, some girls or wives were crying, but there was no panic or shouting, — he specified.
After some time, the plane landed in Lanzhou, China — only then, as Yevgeny explained, those with international SIM cards could contact their relatives and read online that the plane had landed due to problems with one of the engines.
— In China, the plane landed very softly. We were met by a whole delegation, buses and cars were already waiting. Border guards, even though no one understood each other, helped us fill out documents, explaining with gestures and signs. We went through border and customs control, were accommodated in a hotel, and fed. We occupied about three floors with the entire plane.
The next day, as Yevgeny explained, passengers had no information about when and on what they would fly home, but they were awakened at one in the morning to be put on another plane. In total, they spent about ten hours in China.
— In my subjective opinion, even during takeoff I felt that the engine«s operation was somewhat unusual, there were some fluctuations, but I thought it was my imagination — after all, we took off early in the morning. Now our condition is normal. Truth be told, we almost didn»t sleep for two days.
