Miraculous escape for 164 passengers

More than 160 passengers and crew on a commercial flight escaped with seconds to spare after the aircraft skidded off a runway, crashed into a river and burst into flames.

Rescue crews managed to evacuate passengers and the cabin crew from the Boeing 737 plane, where people were forced to jump down onto the wings of the plane and ‘throw’ their children down to safety.

All 170 passengers and crew managed to escape from the wreckage in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi. One airport employee helping with the rescue mission died from a heart attack at the scene.

It took the aircraft two attempts to land, with strong wind and rain likely to be behind the first failed attempt. The crew managed to land the plane but it overshot the runway, crashed through a fence, plummeted into the riverbed and caused the left engine to catch alight, an Utair spokesman told RIA Novosti.