Lviv Airlines Ilyushin Il-76MD Shevelev-1

The Sknyliv air show disaster occurred on 27 July 2002, when a

Ukrainian Air Force The Ukrainian Air Force (, PS ZSU) is the air force of Ukraine and one of the eight Military branch, branches of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (ZSU). Its current form was created in 2004 by merging the Ukrainian Air Defence Forces into the Air Fo ...

Sukhoi Su-27UB aircraft, piloted by Volodymyr Toponar (of the Ukrainian Falcons) and co-piloted by Yuriy Yegorov, crashed into spectators during an

aerobatics Aerobatics is the practice of flying maneuvers involving aircraft attitudes that are not used in conventional passenger-carrying flights. The term is a portmanteau of "aeroplane" and "acrobatics". Aerobatics are performed in aeroplanes and gl ...

presentation at Sknyliv airfield near

Lviv Lviv ( or ; ; ; see #Names and symbols, below for other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine, as well as the List of cities in Ukraine, fifth-largest city in Ukraine, with a population of It serves as the administrative centre of ...

, Ukraine. The accident killed 77 people and injured 543. It is the deadliest air show accident in history.

Crash

More than 10,000 spectators attended the

air show An air show (or airshow, air fair, air tattoo) is a public event where aircraft are trade fair, exhibited. They often include aerobatics demonstrations, without which they are called "static air shows" with aircraft parked on the ground. The ...

, staged to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Ukrainian Air Force's 14th Air Corps. The Su-27 aircraft was flown by two experienced pilots; it entered a rolling maneuver at 12:52 p.m. with a downward trajectory at low altitude. It rolled upright once more and was still descending rapidly when the left wing dropped shortly before it hit the ground, at which point the crew initiated ejection. The aircraft flattened out initially, before skidding over the ground towards stationary aircraft and striking a glancing blow against the nose of an

Ilyushin Il-76 The Ilyushin Il-76 (; NATO reporting name: Candid) is a multi-purpose, fixed-wing, four-engine turbofan strategic airlifter designed by the Soviet Union's Ilyushin design bureau as a commercial freighter in 1967, to replace the Antonov An-1 ...

, at which point the jet exploded and cartwheeled into the crowd of spectators. Both pilots survived with minor injuries, while 77 spectators were killed, including 28 children. Another 100 were hospitalized for head injuries, burns, and bone fractures. Other injuries were less severe and did not require hospitalization. A total of 543 people were injured in the accident. Some bystanders suffered serious mental disorders from what they saw. Following the disaster, the pilots stated that the flight map which they had received differed from the actual layout. On the

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 colloquially as a "black box", an outdated nam ...

, one pilot asks, "And where are our spectators?". Others have suggested that the pilots were slow to react to automated warnings issued by the

flight computer A flight computer is a form of slide rule used in aviation and one of a very few analog computers in widespread use in the 21st century. Sometimes it is called by the make or model name like E6B, CR, CRP-5 or in German, as the ''Dreieckrechner' ...

Aftermath

On August 7, an investigation conducted by

Yevhen Marchuk Yevhen Kyrylovych Marchuk (; 28 January 1941 – 5 August 2021) was a Ukrainian politician, intelligence officer, and general who served as the fourth Prime Minister of Ukraine after its independence in 1991. During his career, Marchuk served ...

, the National Security and Defense Secretary, concluded with the pilots receiving a majority of the blame. In a statement, Marchuk accused Toponar and Yegorov of failing "to respect the flight plan and aerial maneuvers". Marchuk also attributed some blame toward the event organizers and scrutinized them for allowing dangerous stunts to be performed in close proximity to spectators. Toponar rejected Marchuk's findings and claimed that technical issues and a faulty flight plan was what led to the crash. Prior to the incident, he had requested an additional training flight at the airfield where the display was to be performed, but the request was denied.

Ukrainian President The president of Ukraine (, ) is the head of state of Ukraine. The president represents the nation in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the state, conducts negotiations and concludes international treaties. ...

Leonid Kuchma Leonid Danylovych Kuchma (, ; born 9 August 1938) is a Ukrainian politician who was the second president of Ukraine, serving from 19 July 1994 to 23 January 2005. The only president of Ukraine to serve two terms, his presidency was marked by demo ...

publicly blamed the military for the disaster and dismissed the head of the air force, General Viktor Strelnykov.

Minister of Defense A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and military forces, found in states where the government is divid ...

Volodymyr Shkidchenko Volodymyr Petrovych Shkidchenko (; born January 1, 1948) is a Ukrainian military officer, General of Army of Ukraine. Minister of Defence of Ukraine from November 12, 2001 to June 25, 2003. External links Biography 1948 bir ...

offered his resignation, but Kuchma rejected it.

Prosecution

On 24 June 2005, a

military court A court-martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the arme ...

sentenced pilot Volodymyr Toponar and co-pilot Yuriy Yegorov to fourteen and eight years in prison, respectively. The court found the two pilots and three other military officials guilty of failing to follow orders,

negligence Negligence ( Lat. ''negligentia'') is a failure to exercise appropriate care expected to be exercised in similar circumstances. Within the scope of tort law, negligence pertains to harm caused by the violation of a duty of care through a neg ...

, and violating flight rules. Two of the three officials were sentenced to up to six years in prison; the third received up to four years. Toponar was ordered to pay ₴7.2 million (

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

1.42 million;

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists of a stylized letter E (or epsilon), crossed by t ...

1.18 million) in compensation to the families, and Yegorov ₴2.5 million. The crew's main flight trainer was

acquitted In common law jurisdictions, an acquittal means that the criminal prosecution has failed to prove that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the charge presented. It certifies that the accused is free from the charge of an o ...

for lack of evidence. After the verdict was announced, Toponar said that he planned to

appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which Legal case, cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of cla ...

, insisting that the crash was due to technical problems and a faulty flight plan. Yegorov was released in 2008 after President

Viktor Yushchenko Viktor Andriiovych Yushchenko (, ; born 23 February 1954) is a Ukrainian politician who was the third president of Ukraine from 23 January 2005 to 25 February 2010. He aimed to orient Ukraine towards Western world, the West, European Union, and N ...

issued a decree reducing his sentence to three and a half years. Near the end of his prison term, Toponar reasserted his innocence in a phone interview. "From the mission briefing it is obvious that the flight area parameters we were given significantly exceeded the safe margin of separation from spectators. What happened is the fault of organizers. Planes must not fly over spectators. During the show, I had to make several advanced maneuvers in a few minutes. During the half-barrel, I noticed decreased thrust of both engines and the airspeed fell. But the cause remains unknown! Ground control ordered us to continue the flight. During the last maneuver—an oblique loop with a turn—the plane became uncontrollable. During the trial they said it was caused by

pilot error In aviation, pilot error generally refers to an action or decision made by a Aircraft pilot#Airline, pilot that is a substantial contributing factor leading to an Aviation accidents and incidents, aviation accident. It also includes a pilot ...

due to inexperience. I have 27 years in the cockpit with 2,000 hours flying time. I was a member of the Ukrainian Falcons… To the last I struggled to lift the plane, utcopilot Yuriy Yegorov hit the catapult riggering ejectionand we two ejected with our seats."

In popular culture

* The disaster forms the backdrop of an episode in

Victoria Amelina Viktoriia Amelina (; ; 1 January 1986 – 1 July 2023), was a Ukrainian novelist and war crimes researcher. She was the author of two novels and a children's book, a winner of the Joseph Conrad Literary Award and a European Union Prize for Lit ...

's ''Дім для Дома''. The main characters of the novel (one of whom is a retired Soviet military pilot) attend the air show and witness the disaster, but none of them are injured.

References

External links