Aeroflot Flight 411 was an international scheduled flight from

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

, Moscow to

Freetown Freetown is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean and is located in the Western Area of the country. Freetown is Sierra Leone's major urban, economic, financial, cultural, educational and po ...

, Sierra Leone via

Dakar Dakar ( ; ; wo, Ndakaaru) (from :wo:daqaar, daqaar ''tamarind''), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Senegal, largest city of Senegal. The city of Dakar proper has a population of 1,030,594, whereas the population of the Dakar ...

in Senegal. Early on 6 July 1982, the four-engined Ilyushin Il-62 crashed and was destroyed by fire after two engines were shut down shortly after take-off. All 90 passengers and crew on board died as a result of the crash.

Aircraft

The accident aircraft was an

Ilyushin Il-62M 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 p ...

, with

registration Register or registration may refer to: Arts entertainment, and media Music * Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc. * ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller * Registration (organ), th ...

SSSR-86513. Its first flight was in November 1980 and it had flown slightly more than 4,800 hours prior to the accident. The Il-62's four jet engines are mounted in pairs, on pylons either side of the rear fuselage.

Accident

The aircraft took off from Moscow's

at 12:33am with 80 passengers and 10 crew on board. Within seconds the engine fire warning for No. 1 engine was annunciated. The crew shut down the engine and discharged the engine fire extinguishers. Less than a minute later the engine fire warning for No. 2 engine was also annunciated and the crew shut this engine down as well. The crew turned the aircraft to return to Sheremetyevo Airport but after the second engine shutdown it was only at an altitude of about and a speed of . Despite the pilots' efforts to keep it airborne, the aircraft gradually lost height and airspeed until it stalled about above the ground. It then crashed in a forested wetland east of the town of Mendeleyevo and northwest of Sheremetyevo Airport, less than three minutes after takeoff. A passenger from Sierra Leone survived the initial crash and subsequent fire, but died on the evening of 8 July.

Investigation

Post-crash examination of the engines found no pre-crash damage or signs of in-flight fire – the fire warnings were false. The fire warning system was almost completely destroyed by the crash and fire and the reason for the false warnings could not be determined; although there had been nine reported instances of

bleed air Bleed air is compressed air taken from the compressor stage of a gas turbine upstream of its fuel-burning sections. Automatic air supply and cabin pressure controller (ASCPCs) valves bleed air from high or low stage engine compressor sections. Lo ...

leaks causing spurious engine fire warnings on Il-62s between 1975 and the date of the crash, this was ruled out as a cause. The investigation found that it was impossible for the aircraft to maintain altitude on two engines with its flaps set for takeoff and at its weight of , which was close to the

maximum takeoff weight The maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) or maximum gross takeoff weight (MGTOW) or maximum takeoff mass (MTOM) of an aircraft is the maximum weight at which the pilot is allowed to attempt to take off, due to structural or other limits. The analogous ...

for an Il-62. It found no fault with the pilots' actions, who could not make a

forced landing A forced landing is a landing by an aircraft made under factors outside the pilot's control, such as the failure of engines, systems, components, or weather which makes continued flight impossible. For a full description of these, see article on ' ...

because of the dark and the urban areas on the ground below. The investigation found the pilots had followed flight manual procedures; however there was no procedure in the flight manual to cover the situation in which they found themselves.

Notes

References

{{coord, 56, 01, 39, N, 37, 15, 30, E, region:RU_type:landmark_source:kolossus-ruwiki, display=title Aviation accidents and incidents in 1982 Aviation accidents and incidents in the Soviet Union Aviation accidents and incidents in Russia Airliner accidents and incidents caused by instrument failure Accidents and incidents involving the Ilyushin Il-62 1982 disasters in Russia

411 411 may refer to: * The year AD 411, the four hundred and eleventh year of the Gregorian calendar * 411 BC * 4-1-1, a telephone directory assistance number in the United States and Canada ** By extension, a slang term for "information" * ''What's t ...

July 1982 events in Europe