This is the moment a helicopter pilot made a smooth emergency landing in the snow when the engine failed during a flight in Russia.

The medium twin-turbine helicopter owned by Yamal Airlines was taking a grieving family to transport a dead soldier's body back home when the aircraft encountered problems mid-air in Okurg on February 11.

Footage shows the Mi-8t slowly descending onto an open space.

Thick snow powder swept everywhere as they approached the surface but the pilot managed to safely make a running landing.

One of the passengers Nadezhda Lapsui said: 'We flew for about 12 minutes then the helicopter stopped on its side.

'We were descending sharply, it was so scary. Then the pilot came out and shouted that there would be an emergency landing.'

Officials said the helicopter was 15km away from the departure point when the pilot heard metal clanging sounds before the engine failed.

The investigation is ongoing but initial findings said a forgotten screwdriver inside the engine's air intake system could have caused the failure.