Aeroflot Flight 5143 was a domestic scheduled

Karshi Qarshi ( uz, Qarshi/Қарши, ; fa, نخشب ''Nakhshab'') is a city in southern Uzbekistan. It is the capital of Qashqadaryo Region. Administratively, Qarshi is a district-level city, that includes the urban-type settlement Qashqadaryo. It ...

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Ufa Ufa ( ba, Өфө , Öfö; russian: Уфа́, r=Ufá, p=ʊˈfa) is the largest city and capital of Bashkortostan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Belaya and Ufa rivers, in the centre-north of Bashkortostan, on hills forming the ...

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Leningrad 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 ...

passenger flight An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in which ...

that crashed near

Uchkuduk Uchquduq (sometimes spelled as Uchkuduk, uz, Üçquduq; russian: Учкуду́к) is a city in the north of Navoiy Region, Uzbekistan. It is the seat of Uchquduq District. The city's name means "three draw-wells" in Uzbek. It is located at , at ...

Uzbek SSR Uzbekistan (, ) is the common English name for the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (Uzbek SSR; uz, Ўзбекистон Совет Социалистик Республикаси, Oʻzbekiston Sovet Sotsialistik Respublikasi, in Russian: Уз� ...

Soviet Union 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 national ...

, on 10 July 1985. The crash killed all 200 occupants (148 adults, including 9 crewmembers, and 52 children) on board. Investigators determined that crew

fatigue Fatigue describes a state of tiredness that does not resolve with rest or sleep. In general usage, fatigue is synonymous with extreme tiredness or exhaustion that normally follows prolonged physical or mental activity. When it does not resolve ...

was a factor in the accident.

Passengers and crew

Flight 5143 was operated by 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 ...

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 ...

CCCP-85311. Led by

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 only ...

Oleg Pavlovich Belisov, the

cockpit A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft or spacecraft, from which a Pilot in command, pilot controls the aircraft. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the ...

crew consisted of co-pilot Anatoly Timofeevich Pozyumsky,

navigator A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation.Grierson, MikeAviation History—Demise of the Flight Navigator FrancoFlyers.org website, October 14, 2008. Retrieved August 31, 2014. The navigator's primar ...

Garry Nikolaevich Argeev, and

flight engineer A flight engineer (FE), also sometimes called an air engineer, is the member of an aircraft's flight crew who monitors and operates its complex aircraft systems. In the early era of aviation, the position was sometimes referred to as the "air me ...

Abduvahit Sultanovich Mansurov. There were five

flight attendants A flight attendant, also known as steward/stewardess or air host/air hostess, is a member of the aircrew aboard commercial flights, many business jets and some government aircraft. Collectively called cabin crew, flight attendants are prima ...

in the cabin.

Accident

The aircraft was operating the first leg of the flight, and cruising at with an

airspeed In aviation, airspeed is the speed of an aircraft relative to the air. Among the common conventions for qualifying airspeed are: * Indicated airspeed ("IAS"), what is read on an airspeed gauge connected to a Pitot-static system; * Calibrated a ...

of , close to stalling speed for that altitude. The low speed caused vibrations, which the aircrew incorrectly assumed were engine surges. Using the

thrust lever Thrust levers or throttle levers are found in the cockpit of aircraft, and are used by the pilot, copilot, or autopilot to control the thrust output of the aircraft's engines, by controlling the fuel flow to those engines. In multi-engine aircr ...

s to reduce engine power to flight idle, the crew caused a further drop in airspeed to . The aircraft stalled and entered a flat spin, crashing into the ground near Uchkuduk, Uzbekistan, at that time in the Soviet Union. There were no survivors. Flight 5143 remains the deadliest

air disaster An aviation accident is defined by the Convention on International Civil Aviation Annex 13 as an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft, which takes place from the time any person boards the aircraft with the ''intention of fl ...

in Soviet and Uzbek

aviation history The history of aviation extends for more than two thousand years, from the earliest forms of aviation such as kites and attempts at tower jumping to supersonic and hypersonic flight by powered, heavier-than-air jets. Kite flying in China ...

, the deadliest in

Aeroflot PJSC AeroflotRussian Airlines (russian: ПАО "Аэрофло́т — Росси́йские авиали́нии", ), commonly known as Aeroflot ( or ; russian: Аэрофлот, , ), is the flag carrier and the largest airline of Russia. The ...

's history, and the deadliest accident involving a Tupolev Tu-154.

Cause

Flight 5143's

cockpit voice recorder A flight recorder is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of aviation accidents and incidents. The device may often be referred to as a "black box", an outdated name which has b ...

was destroyed in the crash. Investigators, with the help of psychologists, studied the human factors that led to the

accident An accident is an unintended, normally unwanted event that was not directly caused by humans. The term ''accident'' implies that nobody should be blamed, but the event may have been caused by unrecognized or unaddressed risks. Most researcher ...

. They found Flight 5143's flight crew were very fatigued at the time of the crash from having spent the prior 24 hours at the departure airport prior to takeoff. Another factor was inadequate regulations for crews encountering abnormal conditions.

References

{{Aviation accidents and incidents in Russia Aviation accidents and incidents in 1985 Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error Aviation accidents and incidents in the Soviet Union Aviation accidents and incidents in Uzbekistan 5143 Accidents and incidents involving the Tupolev Tu-154 1985 in the Soviet Union July 1985 events in Asia Airliner accidents and incidents caused by stalls 1985 disasters in the Soviet Union

Passengers and crew

Accident

Cause

See also

References