MOSCOW: Russian officials hailed a “miracle” on Friday after a passenger plane made an emergency landing in a Siberian field and all 18 people on board emerged, suffering only cuts and bruises.
The An-28 plane, operated by Siberian Light Aviation (SiLA), was flying from the town of Kedrovy to Tomsk when communication was lost, Governor Sergei Zhvachkin’s office said.
The emergencies ministry announced later that the plane had been found, apparently after making a “hard landing,” and that survivors had been spotted.
The aviation agency said the plane had been found 155 kilometers (96 miles) from the airstrip in Tomsk.
Zhvachkin’s office announced that everyone on board, including three crew, were alive and that medics had “recorded mainly bruises and abrasions.”
“We all believed in a miracle. And thanks to the professionalism of the pilots, it came true: everyone is alive,” the governor said.
Images circling on social media showed the plane flipped upside down with dirt inside the cabin and its nose destroyed.
Zhvachkin said that all of the passengers and crew would be taken to the regional capital Tomsk, where they would be examined by doctors.
The Interfax news agency cited a local official as saying that six passengers refused to take a helicopter from the crash site to Tomsk and would be traveling instead by minibus.
The incident comes just 10 days after the crash of an An-26 plane in Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka peninsula, killing all 28 people on board.
Antonov planes were manufactured during the Soviet era and are still used throughout the former USSR for civilian and military transport. They have been involved in a number of accidents in recent years.
News agency TASS reported that the An-28 plane had passed all safety checks but cited a SiLA executive as saying that the flight had been delayed by 10 hours because of bad weather.
The An-28 is a twin-engine light turboprop plane with a usual capacity of 17 passengers.
A local transport source told the Interfax news agency that the plane was built in 1989 and used by Russian airline Aeroflot and in ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan before going into service with SiLA in 2014.
Russia, once notorious for plane accidents, has improved its air traffic safety record in recent years.
But poor aircraft maintenance and lax safety standards persist.
In May 2019 a Sukhoi Superjet belonging to the flag carrier airline Aeroflot crash-landed and caught fire on the runway of a Moscow airport, killing 41 people.
In February 2018, a Saratov Airlines An-148 aircraft crashed near Moscow shortly after take-off, killing all 71 people on board. An investigation later concluded that the accident was caused by human error.
Flying in Russia can also be dangerous in the vast country’s isolated regions with difficult weather conditions such as the Arctic and the Far East.
All 18 on missing Russian plane found alive in ‘miracle’
https://arab.news/9pcew
All 18 on missing Russian plane found alive in ‘miracle’
- Governor Sergei Zhvachkin: We all believed in a miracle. And thanks to the professionalism of the pilots, it came true: everyone is alive
- Six passengers refused to take a helicopter from the crash site to Tomsk and would be traveling instead by minibus
Migrant entries into Spain drop over 40 percent in 2025
- EU border agency Frontex has also cited stricter preventive measures in departure countries, particularly Mauritania, as a key factor in the drop in migrant arrivals in the Canaries
MADRID: Migrant arrivals to Spain fell by over 40 percent in 2025, largely due to a sharp drop in arrivals along the perilous Atlantic route to the Canary Islands, official figures showed Friday.
Spain is one of the main entry points for people seeking a better life in Europe, and the country has faced pressure from European Union partners to curb irregular migration.
The interior ministry said 36,775 migrants entered Spain irregularly last year, the vast majority by sea, declining by 42.6 percent from 64,019 in 2024.
Arrivals to the Canary Islands dropped 62 percent to 17,788 in 2025, while arrivals in the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean — mainly from Algeria — rose 24.5 percent to 7,321.
Despite the overall decline, migrant deaths remained high.
Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras said Monday that over 3,000 people died while trying to reach Spain in 2025, including 437 minors.
The group compiles its figures from families of migrants and official statistics of those rescued.
The drop in arrivals to the Canaries follows improved relations between Spain and Morocco, where many of the boats headed for the archipelago originate, since Madrid in 2022 backed Rabat’s autonomy plan for the disputed Western Sahara territory.
Both countries have increased maritime surveillance, intelligence sharing and crackdowns on smuggling networks, with Morocco intensifying coastal patrols.
Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska has called for “prevention at the source” to reduce irregular migration.
He has credited Spain’s cooperation with Mauritania and other African countries for the decline in arrivals to the Canaries.
“We can only reduce irregular migration by establishing comprehensive alliances based on trust and mutual benefit,” he said at a November meeting in Malta with EU interior and migration officials.
EU border agency Frontex has also cited stricter preventive measures in departure countries, particularly Mauritania, as a key factor in the drop in migrant arrivals in the Canaries.
In 2024, Mauritania signed a pact with the EU aimed at curbing dangerous maritime crossings in exchange for 210 million euros ($246 million) in funding.
Human rights groups, however, argue that such agreements can encourage abuse.
Human Rights Watch accused Mauritanian authorities in an August report of systematic abuses of migrants, including rape, torture and extortion at the hands of border personnel.
It said the violations worsened after Mauritania signed the migration pact with the EU.
Mauritania has rejected the accusations.
