Aeroflot Flight 6502 was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

domestic passenger flight operated by a Tupolev Tu-134A from Sverdlovsk (now

Yekaterinburg Yekaterinburg ( ; rus, Екатеринбург, p=jɪkətʲɪrʲɪnˈburk), alternatively romanized as Ekaterinburg and formerly known as Sverdlovsk ( rus, Свердло́вск, , svʲɪrˈdlofsk, 1924–1991), is a city and the administra ...

) to

Grozny Grozny ( rus, Грозный, p=ˈgroznɨj; ce, Соьлжа-ГӀала, translit=Sölƶa-Ġala), also spelled Groznyy, is the capital city of Chechnya, Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River. According to the 2010 census, it had a po ...

, which crashed on 20 October 1986; 70 of the 94 passengers and crew on board were killed. Investigators determined the cause of the accident was pilot negligence.

Background

The crew of the

Tu-134A The Tupolev Tu-134 (NATO reporting name: Crusty) is a Twinjet, twin-engined, Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body jet airliner built in the Soviet Union for short and medium-haul routes from 1966 to 1989. The original version featured a glazed-no ...

aircraft, serial number 62327 manufactured on 28 June 1979, consisted of

pilot in command The pilot in command (PIC) of an aircraft is the person aboard the aircraft who is ultimately responsible for its operation and safety during flight. This would be the captain in a typical two- or three- pilot aircrew, or "pilot" if there is on ...

Alexander Kliuyev, co-pilot Gennady Zhirnov, navigating officer Ivan Mokhonko, flight engineer Kyuri Khamzatov, and three flight attendants. Having departed from

Koltsovo Airport Koltsovo International Airport (russian: Аэропорт Кольцово) is the international airport serving Yekaterinburg, Russia, located 16 km (10 mi) southeast of the city. Being the largest airport in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Kolts ...

in Yekaterinburg (then Sverdlovsk) and bound for Grozny, Flight 6502 had one

stopover 250px, Layover for buses at LACMTA's Warner Center Transit Hub, Los Angeles ">Los_Angeles.html" ;"title="Warner Center Transit Hub, Los Angeles">Warner Center Transit Hub, Los Angeles In scheduled transportation, a layover (also waypoint, way ...

at Kurumoch Airport in Samara (then Kuibyshev).

Crash

While approaching Kurumoch Airport, Captain Kliuyev made a bet with First Officer Zhirnov that he, Kliuyev, could make an instrument-only approach with curtained cockpit windows, thus having no visual contact with the ground, instead of an

NDB approach A non-directional beacon (NDB) or non-directional radio beacon is a radio beacon which does not include directional information. Radio beacons are radio transmitters at a known location, used as an aviation or marine navigational aid. NDB are ...

, suggested by the

air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airs ...

. Kliuyev further ignored the ground-proximity warning at an altitude of and did not make the suggested

go-around In aviation, a go-around is an aborted landing of an aircraft that is on final approach or has already touched down. A go-around can either be initiated by the pilot flying or requested by air traffic control for various reasons, such as an unst ...

. The aircraft touched down on the runway at a speed of and came to rest upside down after overrunning the runway. Sixty-three people died during the accident and seven more in hospitals later. Among the passengers were 14 children, all of whom survived the accident. The top-secret report of the chairman of Kuibyshev

oblispolkom A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...

V. A. Pogodin to Premier

Nikolai Ryzhkov Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov ( uk, Микола Іванович Рижков; russian: Николай Иванович Рыжков; born 28 September 1929) is a Soviet, and later Russian, politician. He served as the last Chairman of the Coun ...

gave slightly different figures: Of 85 passengers and eight crew members aboard, 53 passengers and five crew members died in the crash and 11 more in hospitals later. Though Zhirnov made no attempt to avert the crash, he subsequently tried to save the passengers and died of cardiac arrest en route to hospital. Kliuyev was prosecuted and sentenced to 15 years in prison, later reduced to six years served.

References

{{authority control Aviation accidents and incidents in 1986 Aviation accidents and incidents in Russia Aviation accidents and incidents in the Soviet Union Accidents and incidents involving the Tupolev Tu-134

6502 The MOS Technology 6502 (typically pronounced "sixty-five-oh-two" or "six-five-oh-two") William Mensch and the moderator both pronounce the 6502 microprocessor as ''"sixty-five-oh-two"''. is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by a small te ...

Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error 1986 in the Soviet Union Samara, Russia October 1986 events in Europe

Background

Crash

See also

References