Chaos, smoke as Boeing 767 makes hard landing in Siberia, Russia leaving 56 injured (VIDEO)

Forty-nine passengers were injured as a Boeing 767 plane with 344 people aboard touched the ground with its landing gear on fire in Siberia.

The witnesses said the plane operated by Azur Air needed two attempts to land in the Russian city of Barnaul in southern Siberia, not far from the border with Kazakhstan. There was a loud bang as the Boeing made contact with the runway for the first time, and the pilot opted to return to the air.

The aircraft made a circle above the airport before going in for the second attempt. There was smoke in the rear part of the cabin after the landing, which caused panic among the passengers.

“Somebody shouted: ‘We’re on fire.’ And there was chaos as people rushed forward and started pushing each other,” a female witness recalled. But the evacuation was still performed “very fast” and took around 5 minutes, her husband added.

The emergency services swiftly extinguished the blaze.

Forty-nine people were injured in the rough landing, but only one of them, a woman with a suspected kidney contusion, required hospitalization. There were 334 passengers and 10 crew members aboard.

The plane, operated by Russian carrier Azur Air, was returning from Vietnam. Investigators are now working to identify the reasons for the incident.

In May this year, a plane operated by Russia’s flagship carrier Aeroflot caught fire following a botched landing attempt at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, killing 41 people.

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