Passengers at Igarka airport in far north of Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region were asked to push aircraft along runway in blistering cold

It might sound like a bad joke about budget flights but for passengers at a remote Siberian airport there was little to laugh about when they were asked to leave the plane in extreme cold weather and help push it along the tarmac.

Passengers in Igarka, a small town in the far north of Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region, learned that their plane had become stuck to the ground as temperatures plunged to minus 52C (-59F).

A video then shows them pushing the wings to get the plane moving. The plane was a Tupolev 134 operated by Katekavia, a subsidiary of Utair, one of Russia’s biggest airlines.

The plane, which was reportedly carrying 74 passengers, took off and landed safely in the regional centre of Krasnoyarsk. A spokesperson for Katekavia denied the plane had become stuck and said it was instead the vehicle meant to push the plane that had stopped working.

An official at the local prosecutor’s office, Oksana Gorbunova, told Interfax news agency that an investigation would be opened to find out why the passengers had got out and pushed the plane.

“They pushed the plane as if it was a car that had got stuck, which is categorically forbidden as it can damage the plane’s exterior, for example.”