Video of that appears to show passengers dislodging a frozen Russian plane is making the rounds on social media and in various news outlets.

In its report, the AFP news agency writes “Siberian air passengers had to get out and push their plane in temperatures of minus-52 degrees Celsius (-62F) after its chassis froze, Russian prosecutors said Wednesday. The extraordinary story emerged after a passenger posted a video on YouTube showing a group of cheery travelers pushing the Tupolev plane on the snow-covered runway in Igarka, which is beyond the Arctic Circle.”

The Guardian newspaper of London was among others to jump on the story, writingthat “it might sound like a bad joke about budget flights but for passengers at a remote Siberian airport there was little to laugh about when they were asked to leave the plane in extreme cold weather and help push it along the tarmac.”

But a report from Russia-centric website RT.com puts a somewhat different spin on the story.

RT’s report does say the wheels of the UTair Tupolev Tu-134 were frozen to the ground at the airport, about 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle. However, RT suggests the video was more of a “selfie” photo-op than an actual effort to move the heavy aircraft.

RT.com: Siberia: Over 70 passengers ‘push’ frozen plane to runway

RT says the charter flight’s 74 passengers offered to exit the plane in an effort to lighten the aircraft as airport crews tried to get the plane headed toward the runway.

“The passengers disembarked to lighten the weight, and then they volunteered to move it,” a spokeswoman for UTair tells RT.

RT adds that the director of the airport – whom RT did not identify by name – told RT he was doubtful that passengers would have been able to move the heavy aircraft. RT writes the airport director “added that it would be hard to reach its two-meter-high wings, and if you did manage, the cover and flaps could get damaged.”

“The passengers … must have decided to make some sort of a ‘selfie’. The joke proved right and became a good one in the internet,” the airport director is quoted as saying by RT.

The plane did eventually take off from Igarka for the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. As for the possibility of damaging the aircraft, Russian authorities say they’ve launched an investigation.

Regardlessof the precise details, the video has been a hit on the Web.

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SOURCE::::  https://www.youtube.com/and Ben Mutzabaugh,in  www.usatoday.com

Natarajan