MOSCOW — There was a gold rush in Siberia Thursday when the hatch of a cargo plane accidentally flew open upon takeoff — scattering tons of gold bars on the runway, Russian news reports say.
An AN-12 plane operated by the airline Nimbus took off for Krasnoyarsk carrying 9.3 tons of gold and other precious metals, said to be worth $368 million, according to a statement from the state Investigative Committee quoted by Tass. The cargo was reportedly not secured properly and pressed against the hatch until it gave way.
The gold metal bars fell on the runway.The Siberian TimesThe precious metals had come from the Kupol mine in Russia’s Chukotka region, operated by Canadian mining company Kinross Gold.
No one was hurt, and Stanislav Borodyuk, a Russian spokesman for Kinross, told the Interfax news agency that the full cargo of gold and silver alloy called doré bars had been recovered.
But police reported recovering only 172 gold bars weighing 3.4 tons, Tass quoted Interior Ministry officials as saying.
That has left local residents in Yakutia — the coldest region in Russia — wondering what happened to the rest?
The Siberian Times reports that residents believe some of the gold and silver fell in a snow-covered swamp as far as 16 miles from the airport, and have been searching for it, undeterred by police warnings of prosecution for stealing.
Newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets reported: ‘Officially, employees of the airport successfully gathered the bars from the runway — and put it into the guarded storage.
“But there is unofficial information from citizens who are literally walking on gold now.”
“I will go to search at night when guards will be sleeping,” a local man told The Siberian Times. “To dig, to dig and to dig, before dawn.”
One bar — and he could pay off all his debts, he said.
The Siberian Times said it was reported that all flights to Yakutsk were overbooked as people joined the rush.
With files from The Siberian Times, Associated Press and Washington Post