Aeroflot Flight 5463

Aeroflot Flight 5463

An Aeroflot Tu-134A in 1983, similar to that involved in the accident.
Accident
Date	30 August 1983
Summary	Controlled flight into terrain caused by pilot error and ATC error
Site	36 km (22 mi; 19 nmi) from Alma-Ata Airport, Alma-Ata, Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Tupolev Tu-134A
Operator	Aeroflot
Registration	CCCP-65129
Flight origin	Chelyabinsk Airport, Chelyabinsk, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Destination	Alma-Ata Airport, Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union
Occupants	90
Passengers	84
Crew	6
Fatalities	90
Survivors	0

Aeroflot Flight 5463 was a Soviet domestic passenger flight from Chelyabinsk to Almaty which crashed on 30 August 1983 while approaching Almaty. The Tupolev Tu-134A collided with the western slope of Dolan Mountain at an altitude of 690 m (2,260 ft). As a result of the accident, all ninety people on board were killed. Crew error was cited as the cause of the accident.

Accident

Having received the information about the aircraft's location, air traffic control (ATC) gave an erroneous instruction to turn. The crew also mistakenly chose a heading of 199 degrees instead of 140. ATC subsequently gave the proper heading, but instructed the crew to descend to 600 m (2,000 ft), whereas the minimum safe altitude for the surrounding terrain was 4,620 m (15,160 ft). Knowing that the aircraft was on collision course with mountainous terrain and having the right to ignore the ATC in this situation, according to the Soviet flight regulations, the crew chose to make a turn instead, continuing their descent to 600 m (2,000 ft). Having informed ATC of their situation, the crew received a ground proximity warning. Instead of making an urgent climb, the crew delayed any attempt to climb until 1–2 seconds before impact.

The aircraft crashed into Dolan Mountain, at an altitude of 690 m (2,260 ft), 30 km (19 mi; 16 nmi) from Almaty airport, disintegrating and catching fire. At the time of the accident, there was cumulo-nimbus cloud cover at an altitude of 3,000–4,500 m (9,800–14,800 ft) with cloud tops of 7,000–8,000 m (23,000–26,000 ft) and a visibility of 10 km (6.2 mi; 5.4 nmi).

Investigation

The crash of Flight 5463 was attributed to the following causes:

• Violation of the approved approach scheme to Alma-Ata airport
• Failure of the executive flight manager to monitor the situation
• Violation of the flight operations manual by the crew for following the instructions of the final controller to descend below a safe altitude.

External links

• Aeroflot Flight 5463 at Aviation Safety Network