Trio aboard missing plane found alive in Russia's Kamchatka after three days

All three people on board a plane that was forced to make an emergency landing in Russia's remote Kamchatka region have been found alive and well after a three-day search, officials said on Sunday.

The operation ended when a rescue helicopter spotted the An-2 aircraft despite difficult weather conditions on Kamchatka, a peninsula that juts into the Pacific Ocean and is known for its wilderness and volcanoes.

The plane, carrying commercial goods, swiftly lost speed due to a build-up of ice and was forced to land on snow, a local official, Nikolai Sepko, wrote on Telegram.

"They had very little food, and in order to survive the night they dug a hole in the snow to keep warm," he said.

RECOMMENDED FOR YOU

A woman walks past flags and towels bearing the images of Brazil's President and presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and right-wing senator and presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro for sale in a street in Brasiilia on October 22, 2026.

A wake-up call: The countdown for Latin American democracy — Opinion

Andrei Mitasov, one of the rescued trio, told the RT television channel: "Inside (the aircraft) we kept warm, lit fuel, ate our food that we had. We switched on the emergency beacon, prayed and believed in a miracle."

This article was produced by Reuters news agency. It has not been edited by Global South World.