Aeroflot flight 892

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Aeroflot flight 892
Aeroflot Tu-134A-3 CCCP-65770 LFSB May 1985.png

An identical Tupolev Tu-134 from Aeroflot

Accident summary
Accident type controlled flight into terrain
place Berlin-Bohnsdorf
date December 12, 1986
Fatalities 72 (including 20 students)
Survivors 10 (including 7 students)
Injured 10
Aircraft
Aircraft type Tupolev Tu-134A
operator Aeroflot
Mark CCCP-65795
Departure airport Soviet UnionSoviet Union Minsk-1 airport
Stopover CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia Prague Airport (unplanned)
Destination airport Germany Democratic Republic 1949GDR Berlin Schönefeld Airport
Passengers 73
crew 9
Lists of aviation accidents
Rescue work at the accident site

On December 12, 1986, a Tupolev Tu-134A crashed on Aeroflot flight 892 . The aircraft crashed on approach to landing near Berlin-Schönefeld Airport .

Airplane and occupants

The Tupolev Tu-134A ( c / n : 63145, registration : CCCP-65795) was delivered to Aeroflot on March 18, 1980 . At the time of the accident, the machine had completed 12,658 flight hours at 8482 cycles. In addition to the regular eight-person crew, there was an additional instructor on board who was supposed to evaluate the performance of the pilots during landings under poor visibility conditions.

The aircraft carried 73 passengers, including 27 10th grade students from the Ernst Schneller Oberschule in Schwerin and their accompanying persons. The group returned from a graduation trip from Minsk .

the accident

The Tu-134, launched in Minsk, was supposed to land in Berlin-Schönefeld at 12:36 p.m. Because the Berlin airport was under thick fog at the time of arrival, the pilots avoided Prague . At 3:30 p.m., the plane took off again from Prague Airport for Berlin. In the meantime, the northern runway in Schönefeld was closed for maintenance work, so that only the southern runway was available for incoming and outgoing traffic. Due to this traffic situation, the Tu-134 was put on hold east of the airport . The sky over Berlin was completely covered at this point. The cloud base was approximately 130 meters (400 feet ).

Shortly before 5:00 p.m., air traffic control gave permission for an approach to runway 25L (left). Although the clearance was correctly confirmed by the Russian pilots, the Tupolev flew to the blocked northern runway 25R (right). The air traffic controller , who monitored the approach on the radar, warned the crew twice about their mistake; the pilots nevertheless continued the approach. When the Tu-134 pushed through the low-lying cloud cover, the crew noticed their mistake, but tried not to take off . Instead, they turned south to approach runway 25L directly. After the aircraft left the northern approach lane, it grazed several treetops. At 5:03 p.m., the Tupolev crashed into a wooded area between the two approach lanes. On impact, the machine exploded and burned out completely.

Cause of accident

About 30 minutes after the crash, the first rescue workers arrived at the scene of the accident. The flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) were recovered. The recordings of the devices and an official investigation report were not published.

Four days after the accident, the state news agency ADN announced that the aircraft was in good technical condition and that Berlin-Schönefeld Airport was fully operational. According to ADN, the crew was responsible for the accident because they violated the approach rules.

In the period that followed, information increased that the crash was caused by the pilots' poor knowledge of the English language. In the Soviet Union , communication in air traffic took place in Russian, while other Eastern Bloc countries used English. Apparently, the crew confirmed the clearance of the air traffic controller without having fully understood the content. When the pilots noticed their mistake, the aircraft was already too low to switch to the approach to runway 25L in the south. Due to the staggered arrangement of the two runways, the threshold of the southern runway was around 2,200 meters further west of the aircraft's position.

According to witnesses, the noise from the engines increased shortly before impact, suggesting that the crew increased the engine power to reach the more distant runway. It remained unclear whether the master's decisions were influenced by the presence of the examiner and therefore did not abort the missed approach.

Disaster response

At the scene of the accident, the professional fire brigade was involved in the crushing and removal of aircraft debris. Rescue workers from the 9th VP Company Potsdam-Eiche were also on site.

In the late afternoon, forces of the 20th People's Police standby Potsdam-Eiche also arrived at the scene of the accident on the Treptow motorway slip road (today A 117 ). Their primary task was to park their vehicles of the type W 50 and LO on the left of the two lanes in the direction of Grünau as closely as possible in order to watch the visual reporting of a ZDF television team that had also arrived in the meantime , which slowly opened up in the opposite lane with a VW T3 and drove off to complicate or prevent. Corpses of women and children were lying in the right lane of the motorway and in the adjacent forest near the aircraft wreck .

Towards evening, several forensic doctors examined and identified the dead. By funeral homes were coffins delivered to the bodies of the victims evacuate. 10 passengers, including 7 children, survived the accident, some of them with severe burns.

Others

The Schwerin school group considered taking the train to Berlin after landing in Prague. The teacher made a phone call to this, but received no permission, so the group got back on the plane.

Out of consideration for relations with the USSR , the crash and its consequences were quickly banned from reporting by the GDR. Just a few hours after the crash, the state security began monitoring the families of the victims of the Schwerin school class and prepared individual risk analyzes for the parents concerned. Here it was assessed whether the danger of "anti-Soviet" statements could exist.

The accident with 72 deaths is the second most serious airplane accident on German soil after the airplane disaster in Königs Wusterhausen with 156 deaths.

Plaque

souvenir

On the occasion of the 24th anniversary of the crash, a memorial plaque was inaugurated near the site of the accident.

Individual evidence

  1. Inauguration of the memorial plaque for the victims of the plane crash in Bohnsdorf Press release on www.berlin.de on December 8, 2010, accessed on January 31, 2016

literature

  • Dr. Rainer Lambrecht, From the barracks to the official seat - From the history of a military and police accommodation in Potsdam-Eiche , Potsdam 2010, page 130, ISBN 978-3-939090-07-6

Web links

Commons : Aeroflot Flight 892  - Collection of images, videos and audio files