Since these guys got down safely, I hope that noone will begrudge me in seeing the lighter side and imagine them passing a bottle of vodka around the cockpit and singing "Katjusha"
Looks rather nasty though and its amazing they did bring it (and themselves) back to earth in one piece. When I first saw the story on the Beeb that this particular one hadn't flown in ten years, I thought it rather daft that they didn't fuly service/overhaul it in situe rather than try to fly it somewhere for that purpose although IIRC, didn't we do something similar with a lot of ex-BA Super VC10s that were stored at Abingdon for at least 5 years or so in the early to mid 80s?
I can't quite tell from the footage, but is that a Tu-154M or an earlier Tu-154B-2?
Thank you for flying Kremlin airways. Please place your stomach contents in it's upright position
and take care when running from the aircraft as the contents of your underpants may have shifted during flight!