About 70 passengers, including shift workers in Arctic oil and gas fields, had to get out and push after the airplane they were due to travel on was frozen to the runway.
The plane chassis froze in the -52C weather, as did the braking system in the landing gear.
The plane was departing Igarka, at the edge of the Arctic Circle in central Russia, on Tuesday. The destination was Krasnoyarsk, Russia, a 2hr 45min flight south. The passengers had got off to make the plane lighter, and started pushing the aircraft when the pushback tractor could not budge it.
Though the airplane finally started moving, the passengers may be in trouble for helping out. Passengers are not permitted to push aircraft because that can damage it. There may be investigations into whether air safety laws were broken.
The plane successfully made it to Krasnoyarsk, albeit it with a slight delay.
