Flight accident of the Lissunow Li-2 CCCP-L4181 of Aeroflot

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Flight accident of the Lissunow Li-2 CCCP-L4181 of Aeroflot
Lisunov Li-2T CCCP-93914 (9883948133) .jpg

Front view of an identical Lissunow Li-2 from Aeroflot
Accident summary
Accident type Lack of fuel
place near Jamschtschina, Moscow Rajon , Soviet UnionSoviet Union 1923Soviet Union 
date November 5, 1946, 6:07 p.m.
Fatalities 5
Survivors 0
Aircraft
Aircraft type Soviet Union 1923Soviet Union Lissunov Li-2
operator Soviet Union 1923Soviet Union Aeroflot
Mark Soviet Union 1923Soviet Union CCCP-L4181
Departure airport Voronezh Airport , Soviet UnionSoviet Union 1923Soviet Union 
Destination airport Moscow Vnukovo Airport , Soviet UnionSoviet Union 1923Soviet Union 
Passengers 0
crew 5
Lists of aviation accidents

The aircraft accident of the Lissunow Li-2 CCCP-L4181 of Aeroflot was the first of three aircraft accidents that occurred on November 5, 1946 with Aeroflot aircraft . They were all on the approach to Vnukowo airport and were kept in the air until a safe landing was no longer possible due to chaotic conditions at the air traffic control there. When the Lissunow Li-2 CCCP-L4181 crashed, five crew members, the only occupants of the machine, died.

The first crash occurred outside the airport, the other two in Vnukowo. The other two machines that crashed in the Wnukowo catchment area that day were the Douglas C-47 CCCP-L946 , which crashed 23 minutes later, and the Lissunow Li-2 CCCP-L4207 , which crashed 48 minutes after the first crash.

plane

The aircraft was a Lissunow Li-2 built in 1945 . This type of aircraft was a Soviet license replica of the Douglas DC-3 . The aircraft had the aircraft registration CCCP-L4181 and the serial number 18420006 . It was powered by two air-cooled 9-cylinder radial engines of the type M-62IR . By the time of the accident, the machine had had a cumulative operating performance of 1517 operating hours.

Flight history

With the Lissunow Li-2 CCCP-L4181 of the Turkmen branch of Aeroflot, a combined cargo and passenger flight from Ashgabat to Moscow- Vnukowo was actually planned for November 3rd . However, due to a persistent bad weather front, the plane was stuck at Voronezh airport for two days . All passengers who had booked the flight finally started their journey to Moscow by train. With the Lissunow, a pure positioning flight was made to Wnukowo in order to make passenger flights from there again. There was only a five-man crew on board the machine, consisting of a master, first officer, flight engineer, a flight attendant and a flight attendant. The machine started at 2:15 p.m. in Voronezh.

the accident

Difficult weather conditions had prevailed in the Moscow region for days. On November 5, 1946, the weather service at Vnukovo Airport published an inaccurate forecast that the visibility conditions in the Moscow region should improve between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. The report irritated the crews of the approaching aircraft. In addition, air traffic control failed to reroute machines to alternate airports in Solnechnogorsk or Klin . This led to the fact that at times up to 17 machines were approaching Vnukowo at the same time. This lively flight operation overwhelmed the air traffic controllers in Wnukowo, they let many aircraft fly on holding patterns before they gave the clearance for the approach.

On instructions from air traffic control, the Lissunow Li-2 CCCP-L4181 had already been in holding patterns over Moscow for 2 hours when it was granted landing permission at 18:07. At this point the fuel in the tanks was almost exhausted. When flying a standard curve at an altitude under difficult weather conditions (visibility approx. 300–400 meters, cloud cover 30–50 meters) the radial engines suddenly stalled and the machine lost speed. The plane crashed into a ditch near the town of Yamishchev at the 34th kilometer of the Minsk-Moscow motorway. The torso collapsed 16 to 18 ribs in length. The three members of the cockpit crew died at the crash site, the flight attendant later succumbed to their injuries in the hospital.

causes

The investigators essentially attributed the causes of the accident to five factors:

  • An inadequately founded, incorrect weather forecast, which was created by the employees of the Wnukowo weather station between 12 and 5 p.m. The weather forecast was not created in accordance with the observed weather conditions and was not corrected in time, although the weather did not improve as predicted.
  • The clearance of flights from the departure airports at the discretion of the persons responsible there without consulting Vnukovo Airport. Due to this fact, air traffic control in Vnukowo did not have a precise schedule for the arrival times of aircraft.
  • The indiscipline of some airport managers at the departure airports, especially Vilnius airport, which, contrary to regulations, allowed planes to fly to Moscow 30 minutes before sunset. The Lissunow Li-2 CCCP-L4207 , which had started in Vilnius, had also started from Vilnius Airport with defective navigation devices. The numerous missed approaches of the machine due to these circumstances hindered flight operations at Vnukowo Airport.
  • The poorly organized work processes at both Vnukovo Airport and Aeroflot.
  • The disoriented approach of air traffic control at Vnukowo airport, which did not correct the omissions of the handlers at the departure airports by diversion of flights, so that a large number of aircraft were in the airspace above the airport when it got dark.

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