(CNN) A Russian passenger jet flew into a flock of birds then crash-landed in a cornfield just outside a Moscow airport Thursday, according to Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency.

The Ural Airlines Airbus A321 was carrying 226 passengers and a crew of seven from Moscow's Zhukovsky airport to Simferopol -- a city on the Crimean Peninsula -- when it ran into trouble.

Shortly after takeoff, the plane "collided with a flock of gulls," according a statement from the agency.

Some of the birds were sucked into its engines, it added.

Emergency services assist at the scene on Thursday.

The emergency landing took place in a field less than a kilometer (0.62 miles) away from the airport's runway.

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