On September 3, 1970, a

Yakovlev Yak-40 The Yakovlev Yak-40 (; NATO reporting name: Codling) is a regional jet designed in Soviet Union by Yakovlev. The trijet's maiden flight was in 1966, and it was in production from 1967 to 1981. It was introduced to service in 1968, with export mo ...

, operating Aeroflot Flight Sh-4, collided with Mount Airy-Tash in the

Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic The Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic, also commonly known as Soviet Tajikistan, the Tajik SSR, TaSSR, or simply Tajikistan, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union which existed from 1929 to 1991 in Central Asia. The Tajik Rep ...

, a

constituent republic Administrative divisions (also administrative units, administrative regions, subnational entities, or constituent states, as well as many similar generic terms) are geographical areas into which a particular independent sovereign state is divi ...

of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. The crash resulted in 21 fatalities and was the first fatal accident and hull loss of a Yak-40.

Aircraft

The Yak-40, registration CCCP-87690 (

MSN MSN is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps provided by Microsoft. The main webpage provides news, weather, sports, finance and other content curated from hundreds of different sources that Microsoft has partnere ...

9910503 -

Serial number A serial number (SN) is a unique identifier used to ''uniquely'' identify an item, and is usually assigned incrementally or sequentially. Despite being called serial "numbers", they do not need to be strictly numerical and may contain letters ...

03-05), was manufactured at the Saratov Aviation Plant on March 1, 1969, and was transferred to the

Ministry of Civil Aviation of the USSR The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MGA SSSR for ) was a government ministry in the Soviet Union. Formed in 1964 from the Main Administration for the Civil Airfleet in the Ministry of Defense (Soviet Union), Ministry of Defense, MGA provided commerci ...

, which on March 12 sent the aircraft to the Dushanbe Aviation Unit of the Tajik Civil Aviation Directorate. The aircraft had the maximum capacity of 24 passengers. At the time of the accident, the aircraft had accumulated 1020 flight hours and 1344 cycles.

Accident

Flight Sh-4, being operated by the Yak-40, was flying the first leg by the flight crew of the 186th squadron, consisting of commander (PIC) V. F. Sutormin, first officer G. V. Karpov, and

flight engineer A flight engineer (FE), also sometimes called an air engineer, is a member of an aircraft's flight crew who is responsible for monitoring and operating its complex aircraft systems. In the early era of aviation, the position was sometimes referr ...

V. T. Shashkina. The aircraft had 18 passengers onboard the flight. The aircraft departed Frunze Airport at 20:24, reaching the assigned altitude of . After the aircraft flew over the Toktogul Dam, the controller instructed the flight to descend to 5,700 meters (18,700 ft). After descending to the instructed altitude, the aircraft began to deviate 30-50 kilometers north. The crew contacted the dispatcher of

Kokand Kokand ( ) is a city in Fergana Region in eastern Uzbekistan, at the southwestern edge of the Fergana Valley. Administratively, Kokand is a district-level city, that includes the urban-type settlement Muqimiy. The population of Kokand was ap ...

about the flight path of flying over the towns of

Namangan Namangan is a district-level city in eastern Uzbekistan. It is the administrative, economic, and cultural center of Namangan Region. Namangan is located in the northern edge of the Fergana Valley, less than 30 km from the Kyrgyzstan border ...

and

. At the same time, the controller failed to inspect where the flight was on the radar and did not know where its position was but gave permission to descend to 3,300 meters (10,800 ft). The crew of the Yak-40 followed the instructions, descending into the height of the mountains, which was higher than the aircraft’s altitude. The dispatcher in Kokand had instructed the captain to contact Leninabad Airport; without warning the dispatcher in Leninabad (now known as Khujand) and the aircraft’s crew, there was no radar contact within the area. The crew did not realize that the aircraft had deviated to the west from the flight route. The crew radioed to ATC that they had passed over the towns of

and

. At 21:21, Leninabad ATC cleared the crew to descend to and then , although they did not know the exact position of the aircraft At 21:26, the flight, flying at 2100 meters at a speed of , struck the side of Mount Airy-Tash (90 km from Leninabad) at an altitude of 2,300 meters (7,500 ft) and was destroyed on impact, killing the 21 occupants onboard.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Accident description
at the

Aviation Safety Network The Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) is a non-profit, international organization concerning research, education, advocacy, and communications in the field of aviation safety. FSF brings together aviation professionals to help solve safety problems ...

Detailed description at airdisaster.ru
Sh-4 Accidents and incidents involving the Yakovlev Yak-40 Aviation accidents and incidents in Tajikistan Aviation accidents and incidents in 1970

Aircraft

Accident

See also

References

External links