Indian Navy Plane, On Test Flight In Russia, Makes Emergency Landing

New Delhi: An Indian Navy aircraft which was on a test flight in Russia made an emergency landing on Saturday. No one has been injured. According to Russian media, the plane with seven people on board landed at an airfield near Moscow. No Indian Navy crew members were on board the IL-38 plane during the short flight, the Navy said in a statement.

The plane was on a sortie with Russian crew members from the aircraft manufacturing company on board. The Navy had sent its aircraft to Russia for a mid-life upgrade and overhaul. The navy plane landed at Zhukovsky Airfield outside Moscow after a chassis failure, according to Russia's RT network.

The navy said authorities are assessing the extent of damage to the aircraft.

India and Russia recently agreed to strengthen bilateral defence cooperation when Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman visited Russia to attend the VII Moscow Conference on International Security.

Russia has been one of India's key suppliers of arms and ammunition. However, it has been a long-standing grievance of the armed forces that supply of critical spares and equipment from Russia takes a long time affecting maintenance of military systems procured from that country.

India has been pressing Russia to adopt a liberal approach in sharing technology for components of major defence platforms as it was critical to keep them in operational readiness. Majority of India's weapon systems are of Russian origin.

(With inputs from PTI)