Aeroflot flight 1691
| Aeroflot flight 1691 | |
|---|---|
 An identical Tupolew Tu-104B, photographed in 1972 at Stockholm / Arlanda Airport |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | controlled flight into terrain |
| place | near Moscow Vnukovo Airport , Soviet Union |
| date | March 17, 1979 |
| Fatalities | 58 |
| Survivors | 61 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Tupolev Tu-104B |
| operator | Aeroflot |
| Mark | CCCP-42444 |
| Departure airport | Moscow Vnukovo Airport |
| Destination airport | Odessa airport |
| Passengers | 113 |
| crew | 6th |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
On March 17, 1979, a Tupolev Tu-104 crashed on Aeroflot flight 1691 as a result of a false fire alarm near Moscow-Vnukovo airport in what was then the Soviet Union . 119 people were on board. 57 passengers and one flight attendant were killed in the accident.
Flight sequence
The Tupolev Tu-104 was scheduled to take off from Moscow-Vnukowo airport to Odessa at 8:15 a.m. local time , but the departure was delayed several times due to bad weather conditions at the destination airport. The machine did not take off until 19:32 in Moscow . Five seconds after take-off, the fire alarm of the left engine in the cockpit sounded . At the same time, the automatic fire extinguishing system was activated. The pilots continued to climb and initiated a traffic pattern to return to Moscow Vnukovo Airport. The power of the supposedly burning engine was reduced to zero around six minutes after take-off at an altitude of 1,500 meters. Due to the risk of fire, the crew decided against opening the emergency drain valves on the fuel tanks to make the machine easier for landing.
The crew carried out the instrument approach to runway 24 in poor visibility conditions with the support of the air traffic controller . The landing gear was extended 19 kilometers from the airport at a speed of 430 km / h. Around nine kilometers from the runway threshold, the rate of descent was 2.4 m / s , with the machine above the ILS glide path . The crew reduced the power of the right engine almost six kilometers from the airport and increased the rate of descent to 9 m / s. Shortly afterwards, the air traffic controller asked the pilots to correct their course several times because the aircraft was 180 meters to the right to the center of the runway. While the crew was concentrating on the course, the Tupolev flew under the ILS gliding jet. After the pilots noticed that the flight altitude was too low, they increased the engine power to the maximum, but could no longer prevent the accident.
At 7:48 p.m., the aircraft's left landing gear and left wing brushed the mast of an overhead power line and then several trees with the fuselage. The machine flew over the Moscow – Kiev motorway at a high bank angle at a height of a few meters and immediately afterwards hit a field, turning on its back. The cockpit and the wings were torn off on impact. The fuselage came to a standstill about 1,500 m from the runway ( 55 ° 35 ′ 56 ″ N , 37 ° 18 ′ 32 ″ E, ). Fire broke out after the impact.
Accident investigation
It turned out that the maximum take-off weight of the machine had been exceeded by 10.7 t. In addition, the pilot flying had only 32 hours of flight time on this type of aircraft.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Airdisaster.ru, description of the accident on Aeroflot flight 1691 (in Russian), accessed on April 17, 2016
- ↑ a b Aviation Safety Network, accident summary: Tupolev Tu-104B, CCCP-42444, March 17, 1979 (English), accessed on April 17, 2016