UTair and NordStar Planes Face Substantial Damage After Taxiing Incident

Two Boeing 737-800s got tangled on the apron at Sochi International Airport (AER) on June 27, 2025. There were no injuries, but the planes, one from UTair and the other from NordStar, sustained substantial damage.

UTair flight UT514, bound for Tyumen, had just started taxiing out for departure when it clipped NordStar flight Y7412, which had just arrived from Norilsk. The arriving NordStar jet reportedly stopped short of its assigned parking mark, allegedly because no one was present to marshal it in. Apparently, that little detail wasn’t relayed to ground control.

According to photos and statements from Russia’s Southern Transport Prosecutor’s Office, the winglet of the UTair 737 (RA-73498) tore clean off and became embedded in the NordStar jet’s horizontal stabilizer. Nobody was injured, but both aircraft sustained what regulators would call “substantial” damage. And, given the state of both airframes, the maintenance bills will likely leave a mark.

The airport remained operational, and passengers were eventually re-accommodated or rebooked. Meanwhile, investigators are sorting out who knew what and when, especially why an aircraft was parked with no ground personnel waiting.

This is the latest on UTair’s list of 737s destroyed on the Sochi Airport grounds. In late 2018, a Boeing 737-800 operating as UTair Flight 579 suffered a runway excursion accident after landing in known windshear conditions. The aircraft was still travelling at around 75 kts when it broke through a fence and came to a stop in a river bed, injuring eighteen passengers and destroying the aircraft.

FMI: www.utair.ru