Photo: Screenshots from YouTube
The Russian Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 fighter plane is a bit of a legend. It's like the AK-47 of military jets: an old design that somehow still manages to work in some parts of the world due to its ruggedness and low maintenance cost.
However, considering its first flight happened over 60 years ago, the Russian Army has replaced the aging fighter with more modern options. But scrapping thousands of planes is hard work, so it decided to use a few of them as monuments. Yup, put one in the middle of a public open space, and you've got yourself a ready-made statue.
Easier said than done. Even stripped of all the armament and unnecessary equipment, the former dogfighter still weighs quite a lot. How much? Well, nobody knows for sure, but while that means just the inability to answer a question for you and me, it has much greater implications for the workers who are attempting to lift the military vehicle.
It sounds like a straightforward job: you attach the crane cables, you lift the plane, you put it in the desired position, you detach the cable, you give yourself a nice pat on the back, and you're off to celebrate with a vodka. It seems the order of these actions might have tangled up a bit because somebody clearly didn't do their job.
As the workers were trying to fit the plane onto its 45-degree angled pedestal, the crane cable snapped and the MiG crash landed from no more than 25 feet high. That proved to be enough for its demise as its front end now looked like the reverse of a Concorde's. We doubt they'll be able to sweep this one under the rug.
Luckily for them, though, there are probably plenty of MiG-21s lying around in Russia, so nobody got send to the Gulag. Fortunately, nobody was admiring the plane's underbelly, so there were no casualties either. Even though we wouldn't be surprised if the same attitude of "plenty lying around" would have been employed if there were.
Easier said than done. Even stripped of all the armament and unnecessary equipment, the former dogfighter still weighs quite a lot. How much? Well, nobody knows for sure, but while that means just the inability to answer a question for you and me, it has much greater implications for the workers who are attempting to lift the military vehicle.
It sounds like a straightforward job: you attach the crane cables, you lift the plane, you put it in the desired position, you detach the cable, you give yourself a nice pat on the back, and you're off to celebrate with a vodka. It seems the order of these actions might have tangled up a bit because somebody clearly didn't do their job.
As the workers were trying to fit the plane onto its 45-degree angled pedestal, the crane cable snapped and the MiG crash landed from no more than 25 feet high. That proved to be enough for its demise as its front end now looked like the reverse of a Concorde's. We doubt they'll be able to sweep this one under the rug.
Luckily for them, though, there are probably plenty of MiG-21s lying around in Russia, so nobody got send to the Gulag. Fortunately, nobody was admiring the plane's underbelly, so there were no casualties either. Even though we wouldn't be surprised if the same attitude of "plenty lying around" would have been employed if there were.
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