Russian passenger jet makes emergency landing

A Russian Tupolev Tu-154 passenger jet with 165 people on board has made a safe emergency landing in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, a spokesman for the local emergencies ministry said on Thursday. "The Tu-154 aircraft en route from Moscow has made an emergency landing in Makhachkala at 0:02 Thursday [20:02 GMT Wednesday] after a failure in one of its engines. According to preliminary information, the aircraft carried 165 people, including the crew and 14 children," Kantemir Davydov, a spokesman for the North Caucasus Emergencies Ministry's department, said. He said no one was injured upon the landing adding that "the crew's coordinated efforts prevented a possible emergency situation." Rescuers, firefighters and ambulances were dispatched to the landing stripe at the Makhachkala airport after traffic controllers received an emergency warning from the aircraft on Wednesday at 23:30 Moscow time (19:30 GMT). This is a second emergency landing of a Tu-154 aircraft in Russia in a week. Last Saturday, a Tu-154 passenger jet with 116 passengers on board made a safe emergency landing in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg after one of its engines failed.