Aeroflot Flight 109 ( ''Reys 109 Aeroflota'') was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Moscow to Chita with stopovers in Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk, and Irkutsk. On the final leg of the route on 18 May 1973 a terrorist hijacked the aircraft, demanding to be flown to China; the terrorist's bomb detonated in flight after he was shot by the air marshal.

Aircraft

The aircraft involved in the accident was a

Tupolev Tu-104A The Tupolev Tu-104 (NATO reporting name: Camel) is a retired twinjet, medium-range, narrow-body turbojet-powered Soviet airliner. It was the second to enter regular service, behind the British de Havilland Comet, and was the only jetliner opera ...

registered СССР-42379 to

Aeroflot PJSC AeroflotRussian Airlines (russian: ПАО "Аэрофло́т — Росси́йские авиали́нии", ), commonly known as Aeroflot ( or ; russian: Аэрофлот, , ), is the flag carrier and the largest airline of Russia. The ...

. The cabin layout originally had enough seats for 70 passengers, but the seating configuration was changed to accommodate 85 passengers. The Tupolev Tu-104 took its first flight on 17 May 1958. At the time of the accident, the aircraft sustained 19,329 flight hours and 8,841 pressurization cycles.

Crew

72 passengers were aboard the flight, including four children. Nine crew members were aboard the flight. The cockpit crew consisted of: *

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

Nikolai Obodyansky *

Co-pilot In aviation, the first officer (FO), also called co-pilot, is the pilot who is second-in-command of the aircraft to the captain, who is the legal commander. In the event of incapacitation of the captain, the first officer will assume command o ...

Yuri Ponomarev *

Navigator A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation.Grierson, MikeAviation History—Demise of the Flight Navigator FrancoFlyers.org website, October 14, 2008. Retrieved August 31, 2014. The navigator's primar ...

Vladislav Baryshnikov *

Flight engineer A flight engineer (FE), also sometimes called an air engineer, is the member of an aircraft's flight crew who monitors and operates its complex aircraft systems. In the early era of aviation, the position was sometimes referred to as the "air me ...

Georgy Kuzenkov * Radio operator Nikolai Yefimtsev

Synopsis

The flight carried out the Moscow-Irkutsk part of the route without incident. On 18 May at 03:02 Moscow time the flight departed from Irkutsk Airport, proceeding en route to Chita at an altitude of . At 03:22 flight 109 entered the zone of Chita air traffic control, and at 03:32 the air traffic controller permitted the flight to descend to . Shortly thereafter at 03:36 the flight radio transmitted an indication of danger three times; the crew then informed air traffic control that a passenger in the cabin insisted the flight change course. The controller confirmed receipt of the information. At 03:36:30 the crew reported they would maintain a holding pattern at 6,500 meters; at 03:36:45 the dispatcher asked the crew for their current altitude, to which they reported they would be increasing to . At 03:38 a coded transmission indicating the flight was in danger was sent, but was interrupted after the ninth dash. When the onboard security officer Vladimir Yezhikov shot the hijacker, the bomb detonated. The dispatcher informed the flight of their location relative to the airport, but the flight did not respond; the spot on the radar screen where the flight was appeared like a blur before it disappeared from the radar completely. At 4:55, the crew of a Mi-8 helicopter discovered the remains of the aircraft directly west of Chita Airport, stretching across land area over wide. None of the 81 people aboard the aircraft survived.

Conclusions

Five eyewitnesses reported seeing and hearing an explosion in the air at between 09:35 and 09:45 local time (03:35 to 03:45 Moscow time); according to the commission responsible for the investigation, the aircraft broke up mid-air into several sections consistent with a sharp sudden change in pressure. Forensic investigation revealed that the explosion was caused by passenger Chingis Yunusogly Rzayev, born in Irkutsk in 1941. When he tried to infiltrate the cockpit the policeman Vladimir Yezhikov shot him in the back; the bullet hit the area of the 8th intercostal space before it penetrated the heart. As Rzayev lay dying he managed to activate the bomb he had with him, consisting of of TNT.

References

External links