Aeroflot Flight 4225 was a
Tupolev Tu-154B-2
The Tupolev Tu-154 (russian: Tyполев Ту-154; NATO reporting name: "Careless") is a three-engined, medium-range, narrow-body airliner designed in the mid-1960s and manufactured by Tupolev. A workhorse of Soviet and (subsequently) Russian ...
on a scheduled domestic passenger flight from
Alma-Ata Airport (now Almaty) to
Simferopol Airport
Simferopol International Airport ( uk, Міжнародний аеропорт "Сімферополь", ''Mizhnarodnyy aeroport "Simferopol’"''; russian: link=, Международный аэропорт "Симферополь", ''Mezhdunar ...
on 8 July 1980. The aircraft had reached an altitude of no more than 500 feet when the airspeed suddenly dropped because of
thermal currents it encountered during the climb out. This caused the airplane to stall less than from the airport, crash and catch fire, killing all 156 passengers and 10 crew on board.
To date, it remains the deadliest aviation accident in Kazakhstan.
Accident
At the time of the accident,
Alma-Ata was experiencing a
heat wave
A heat wave, or heatwave, is a period of excessively hot weather, which may be accompanied by high humidity, especially in oceanic climate countries. While definitions vary, a heat wave is usually measured relative to the usual climate in the ...
. It was around 00:39 and Flight 4225 took off from Alma-Ata Airport in Soviet Kazakhstan.
Only a few seconds after take off, the flight reached . The weather was not on the flight's side; the plane reached a zone of hot air and then the Soviet aircraft's
airspeed dramatically dropped and the plane was caught in a big
downdraft. The Tupolev
stalled
''Stalled'' is a 2013 British zombie comedy film directed by Christian James. It stars Dan Palmer, who also wrote the screenplay, as a man confined to a bathroom stall after zombies attack. Produced by Richard Kerrigan and Daniel Pickering, the f ...
and plummeted, nose down, into a farm near the suburbs of Alma-Ata. It slid into a ravine, caught fire and disintegrated, killing everyone on board.
Investigation
The Soviet aviation board concluded that the crash was caused by
windshear
Wind shear (or windshear), sometimes referred to as wind gradient, is a difference in wind speed and/or direction over a relatively short distance in the atmosphere. Atmospheric wind shear is normally described as either vertical or horizontal ...
which took place while the aircraft was near its maximum takeoff weight for the local conditions which included mountains.
See also
*
Aeroflot accidents and incidents in the 1980s
Following is a list of accidents and incidents experienced by Aeroflot during the 1980s. The deadliest accident the carrier experienced in this decade occurred in , when Flight 7425, a Tupolev Tu-154B-2, stalled en route and crashed near Uchk ...
References
External links
Archive copy of Sarasota Herald-Tribune ''Soviet Jetliner Crashes; At Least 163 are Killed''Archive of The Bulletin from 17 July 1980 ''163 reported dead in Soviet jet crash''
{{Portal bar, Aviation, Soviet Union, 1980s
Airliner accidents and incidents caused by weather
Aviation accidents and incidents in 1980
Accidents and incidents involving the Tupolev Tu-154
Airliner accidents and incidents caused by microbursts
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Aviation accidents and incidents in Kazakhstan
Aviation accidents and incidents in the Soviet Union
1980 in the Soviet Union
July 1980 events in Asia
Aviation accidents and incidents caused by loss of control