Passengers push frozen plane in -52 C. weather

With the temperature at -52 degrees Celsius (yes "minus" 52) and their plane's brakes frozen, passengers, all Siberian oil workers, pushed it free โ€“ or say they say.

Please join us on our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/bangkokpostlearning

Passengers get out and push frozen Siberian plane

MOSCOW, AFP – A group of hardy Siberian oil workers stuck in a frozen plane took matters in their own hands – getting out to give the stranded jet a push.

The extraordinary story emerged Wednesday after a passenger posted a video on YouTube showing a group of cheery travellers pushing the Tupolev plane along the snow-covered runway in Igarka, which is beyond the Arctic Circle.

"Let's go," passengers in thick winter coats shout and whoop as they grab the wings of the plane and shove it several metres along the runway.

"Everyone wants to go home," one man says.

Transport prosecutors in western Siberia said they were investigating the incident, which took place on Tuesday morning in temperatures of -52 degrees Celsius.

"Due to the low air temperatures, the chassis's brake system froze and a tow truck was unable to move the plane onto the taxiway to carry out the flight," prosecutors said in a statement.

"The passengers on board got out of the plane and started pushing it onto the taxiway."

The airport's technical director Vladimir Artyomenko said that the plane had been immobilised because the pilots forgot to take off the parking brake when they left the plane.

"That caused the brake pads to freeze up," he said.

Passengers pushed the plane until it was able to turn and then the tow truck took over, he said. The flight then took off and went smoothly.

The Tupolev-134 plane with 74 passengers on board was flying from Igarka, around 2,800 kilometres northeast of Moscow, to the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.

Even for Russians inured to long winters of sub-zero temperatures, the passengers' can-do chutzpah has drawn awed admiration.

Note: Not everyone believes the passengers were actually moving the plane.

Oksana Gorbunova, a spokewoman for transport prosecutors , said that with the plane’s wings nearly six feet off the ground, the passengers had to stretch just to reach up and touch them. Budging the approximately 70-ton aircraft by hand was simply not possible.

What do you think? Here is a forty-seven second video to help you decide:

สามารถฝึกอ่านออกเสียงและดูคำแปลได้ที่ : http://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/learning-from-news/445931/passengers-push-frozen-plane-in-52-c-weather