Aeroflot Flight 217 was a non-scheduled international passenger flight from

Orly Airport Paris Orly Airport (french: Aéroport de Paris-Orly), commonly referred to as Orly , is one of two international airports serving the French capital, Paris, the other one being Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG). It is located partially in Orly an ...

in Paris to

Sheremetyevo International Airport Sheremetyevo Alexander S. Pushkin International Airport ( rus, links=no, Международный аэропорт Шереметьево имени А. С. Пушкина, p=ʂɨrʲɪˈmʲetʲjɪvə ''Mezhdunarodny aeroport Sheremetyevo imen ...

in Moscow, with a stopover at Shosseynaya Airport (now

Pulkovo Airport Pulkovo ( rus, links=no, Пулково, p=ˈpulkəvə) is an international airport serving St. Petersburg, Russia. It consists of one terminal which is located south of the city centre. The airport serves as a airline hub, hub for Rossiya Ai ...

) in Leningrad (now

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

). On 13 October 1972, the

Ilyushin Il-62 The Ilyushin Il-62 (russian: Илью́шин Ил-62; NATO reporting name: Classic) is a Soviet long-range narrow-body jetliner conceived in 1960 by Ilyushin. As successor to the popular turboprop Il-18 and with capacity for almost 200 pa ...

airliner operating the flight crashed on approach to Sheremetyevo, with the loss of all 164 passengers and crew of 10. At the time, it was the world's deadliest civil aviation disaster, until it was surpassed by the

Kano air disaster The Kano air disaster was a chartered Boeing 707 passenger flight on 22 January 1973 that crashed while attempting to land at Kano International Airport. It is the deadliest aviation disaster ever to take place in Nigeria, as 176 passengers and ...

in 1973. As of 2023, this remains the second-deadliest accident involving an Il-62, after

LOT Flight 5055 LOT Polish Airlines Flight 5055 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Warsaw, Poland, to New York City, United States. In the late-morning hours of 9 May 1987, the Ilyushin Il-62M operating the flight crashed in the Kabaty Woods na ...

, and the second-deadliest on Russian soil, after

Aeroflot Flight 3352 Aeroflot Flight 3352 was a Tupolev Tu-154 airline flight on a domestic route from Krasnodar to Novosibirsk, with an intermediate landing in Omsk. While landing at Omsk Airport on Thursday, 11 October 1984, the aircraft crashed into maintenanc ...

Passengers

Crash

Shortly before the expected landing, the plane was flying at the altitude of and received the ATC instructions to descend to . The crew confirmed and started to descend, but later there was no action to return to the horizontal flight. The plane passed the mark with vertical velocity, no expected report to ATC and engines still running at low thrust. It crashed shortly afterwards, with landing gear up, spoilers retracted and horizontal speed about .

Investigation

The cause of the crash could not be determined. Investigators did believe the most probable cause was the 'psycho-physiological incapacitation of the crew for reasons unknown'. Somewhere around altitude, 30–25 seconds before impact, the pilots either have been incapacitated or lost control of the plane.

Notes

References

External links

* * * {{Aviation accidents and incidents in Russia Aviation accidents and incidents in the Soviet Union Aviation accidents and incidents in Russia Aviation accidents and incidents in 1972 1972 in the Soviet Union

217 Year 217 (Roman numerals, CCXVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Praesens and Extricatus (or, less frequently, yea ...