Having an airline lose your luggage is a unique kind of hell. Now, imagine if your bags were loaded with diamonds, platinum, and gold (I guess you’re Offset in this hypothetical situation). And your bags didn’t just get lost—they were strewn all over the runway. Welp, that’s exactly what happened in Russia today.
A Nimbus Airlines AN-12 cargo plane encountered some issues during takeoff, causing it to drop the precious metals and jewels all over the runway at Yakutsk airport. FYI: Yakutsk happens to be the capital of Russia’s diamond producing region, Yukia, aka the Sasha Republic. Gold bars literally rained from the sky, some of them landing as far as 26 kilometers from the airport. (I really want to make a golden shower joke here, but I’ll restrain myself. This is the news, after all.) The plane was reportedly en route to Krasonyarsk and then to Kupol (Dome) mine.
Anyway, the crew decided to land the plane at a nearby airport. Police sealed off the runway to search for the precious cargo, which belonged to Chukota Mining and Geological company. It’s worth noting that Canadian Kinross Gold owns 75% of the company. Meanwhile, the technical engineers who prepped the plane for takeoff have been detained.
The Siberian Times reports that the goods are worth around $368 million or 21 billion roubles. The incident occurred in one of the country’s coldest regions, which is sure to make the recovery efforts that much more challenging. Talk about ice on ice.
