Aeroflot Flight 5463 was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

domestic passenger flight from

Chelyabinsk Chelyabinsk ( rus, Челя́бинск, p=tɕɪˈlʲæbʲɪnsk, a=Ru-Chelyabinsk.ogg; ba, Силәбе, ''Siläbe'') is the administrative center and largest city of Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. It is the seventh-largest city in Russia, with a ...

Almaty Almaty (; kk, Алматы; ), formerly known as Alma-Ata ( kk, Алма-Ата), is the List of most populous cities in Kazakhstan, largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population of about 2 million. It was the capital of Kazakhstan from 1929 to ...

which crashed on 30 August 1983 while approaching Almaty. The Tupolev Tu-134A collided with the western slope of Dolan Mountain at an altitude of . As a result of the accident, all ninety people on board were killed. Crew error was cited as the cause of the accident.

Accident

Having received the information about the aircraft's location,

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 ...

(ATC) gave an erroneous instruction to turn. The crew also mistakenly chose a

heading Heading can refer to: * Heading (metalworking), a process which incorporates the extruding and upsetting processes * Headline, text at the top of a newspaper article * Heading (navigation), the direction a person or vehicle is facing, usually s ...

of 199 degrees instead of 140. ATC subsequently gave the proper heading, but instructed the crew to descend to , whereas the minimum safe altitude for the surrounding terrain was . Knowing that the aircraft was on

collision course {{wiktionary A collision course, also known as a ''kamikaze run'', is the deliberate maneuver by the operator of a moving object (or often in Sci-Fi a spaceship) to collide with another object. It is a desperate maneuver since it often damages ...

with mountainous terrain and having the right to ignore the ATC in this situation, according to the Soviet flight regulations, the crew chose to make a turn instead, continuing their descent to . Having informed ATC of their situation, the crew received a ground proximity warning. Instead of making an urgent climb, the crew delayed any attempt to climb until 1–2 seconds before impact. The aircraft crashed into Dolan Mountain, at an altitude of , from

Almaty airport Almaty International Airport ( kk, Halyqaralyq Almaty Äuejaiy) is a major international airport northeast of Almaty, the largest city and commercial capital of Kazakhstan. It is the busiest airport in Kazakhstan, accounting for 6.42 million ...

, disintegrating and catching fire. At the time of the accident, there was

cumulo-nimbus Cumulonimbus (from Latin ''cumulus'', "heaped" and ''nimbus'', "rainstorm") is a dense, towering vertical cloud, typically forming from water vapor condensing in the lower troposphere that builds upward carried by powerful buoyant air currents. ...

cloud cover at an altitude of with

cloud top Cloud Top () is a 30-story, tall residential twin skyscraper complex located in Xinyi Special District, Taipei, Taiwan. The complex used to be the tallest residential skyscrapers in Taipei when completed in 1997. Built under strict requirement ...

s of and a visibility of .

Investigation

The crash of Flight 5463 was attributed to the following causes:- *Violation of the approved approach scheme to

Alma-Ata airport Almaty International Airport ( kk, Halyqaralyq Almaty Äuejaiy) is a major international airport northeast of Almaty, the largest city and commercial capital of Kazakhstan. It is the busiest airport in Kazakhstan, accounting for 6.42 million ...

*Failure of the executive flight manager to monitor the situation *Violation of the flight operations manual by the crew for following the instructions of the final controller to descend below a safe altitude.

References

External links

Aeroflot Flight 5463 at Aviation Safety Network
{{coord, 43, 10, 8.04, N, 76, 41, 53.16, E, source:wikidata-and-enwiki-cat-tree_region:KZ, display=title 1980s in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic 1983 in the Soviet Union 5463 Airliner accidents and incidents involving controlled flight into terrain Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error Aviation accidents and incidents caused by air traffic controller error Aviation accidents and incidents in 1983 Aviation accidents and incidents in Kazakhstan Aviation accidents and incidents in the Soviet Union Accidents and incidents involving the Tupolev Tu-134 August 1983 events in Asia 1983 disasters in the Soviet Union