Unusual footage: Late for a flight and ran after the plane with a carry-on
In heels, with a carry-on, and with no intention of giving up: two women who were late for an Aeroflot flight in Russia went out onto the tarmac in an attempt to catch the plane that had already been towed from the gate. Ground crews were forced to stop the operation, and police were called to the scene. How did the chase end?
Two passengers who were late for an Aeroflot flight at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow did not give up. In unusual footage, they are seen running on the tarmac, with one of them dragging a carry-on suitcase, in an attempt to reach the plane that had already been towed away from the gate. The towing operation was stopped, and ground crew members and police officers who were called to the scene removed the two from the operational area.
The incident occurred on July 25, but only in the last day did the footage receive widespread exposure online, after being published, among others, on the aviation sites View From The Wing and on the X accounts of FL360aero and Breaking Aviation News & Videos. When the two reached the tarmac, the plane's doors were already closed and it was in the process of being towed from the gate. According to the aviation blog View From The Wing, their appearance in the operational area forced the ground crews to stop the towing.
Contrary to some reports circulated online, the two did not run on the runway but on the tarmac — a restricted operational area where, among other things, towing, refueling, and aircraft maintenance operations are carried out. On the FL360aero site, they defined the incident as an intrusion into a secure area and emphasized that unauthorized entry into such an area could endanger the passengers themselves, the ground staff, and the activity around the planes.
Gary Leff, editor of the aviation site View From The Wing, noted that even if the two had managed to stop the plane, they would have had no practical way to board it: the doors were already closed and the plane had been moved away from the gate, so it would have been necessary to return it to the parking position or bring passenger stairs specifically.
"There was no scenario where they would have actually boarded the plane," the aviation expert wrote.
And this is not the first case where passengers who were late for a flight decided to chase the plane. Last November, at Cologne Bonn Airport in Germany, two passengers who were late for a Wizz Air flight went out to the operational area and ran towards the plane, whose engines were already running and it was waiting for takeoff. The two were arrested and handed over to the police. A similar case also occurred in May in Tyumen, Russia, where a passenger who was late for a flight to Norilsk went out to the operational area in an attempt to stop the plane and was fined 3,000 rubles.
