Aeroflot Flight F-28

Aeroflot Flight F-28

An Aeroflot Ilyushin Il-14 of the same type as the one involved in the accident.
Accident
Date	28 June 1969 (1969-06-28)
Summary	Crew errors, CFIT
Site	Kyrgyz Range, 39 km from Talas (Kyrgyz SSR, USSR)
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Ilyushin Il-14G
Operator	Aeroflot (Kyrgyz UGA, Frunze OAO)
Registration	CCCP-91495
Flight origin	Talas Airport
Destination	Frunze Airport
Passengers	35
Crew	5
Fatalities	40
Survivors	0

Aeroflot Flight F-28 was a domestic flight from Talas to Frunze (now Bishkek) that crashed on Saturday, June 28, 1969, in the mountains of the Kyrgyz Range near Talas, resulting in the deaths of 40 people.

Aircraft

The Il-14G with tail number 91495 (factory number 7343306, serial number 33-06) was produced by the Tashkent Aviation Production Association named after V. P. Chkalov on October 10, 1957, and initially had the tail number L1476 (L1474, re-registered in 1959). The aircraft was handed over to the Main Directorate of the Civil Air Fleet (GUGVF), which initially directed it on October 16 to the Kazakh Department of the Civil Air Fleet. In 1965, aircraft 91495 was briefly operated by the Tashkent aviation detachment of the Uzbek Civil Air Fleet, and on October 31 of the same year, it was transferred to the Frunze aviation detachment of the Kyrgyz Civil Air Fleet. By the time of the crash, the aircraft had 16,598 flight hours and 14,162 landings.

Crash

The aircraft operated local flight Zh-28 on the Talas—Frunze route. It was piloted by a crew from the 250th flight detachment, consisting of commander (KVS) Andrey Ivanovich Fateev, co-pilot Anatoly Stepanovich Shevchenko, navigator Yuri Mikhailovich Kurlaev, flight engineer Grigory Tikhonovich Shalygin, and radio operator Ivan Ivanovich Pleskanev. At 19:36 local time, the Il-14 took off from Talas Airport on a magnetic course of 270°. There were 35 passengers on board: 28 adults and 7 children.

After departing from the airport, the aircraft, according to the established departure scheme, was supposed to turn left. However, the crew violated the rules and turned right towards the mountain range, starting to gain altitude while flying along the left edge of the route. At 19:42, the crew communicated with the dispatcher at Talas Airport tower, and the dispatcher, knowing that the crew was violating the established flight scheme, did not require a return to the correct flight path. Meanwhile, the airliner continued to deviate left from the route without reaching a safe altitude.

At 19:50, 14 minutes after takeoff, flying in clouds at an altitude of 3,150 meters (1,884 meters above the airport level) and having deviated left from the route by 8,700 meters, the Il-14 crashed into a treeless gentle (22°) slope of a mountain 39 kilometers northeast (azimuth 70°) of Talas Airport. The aircraft skidded up the slope for about 50 meters, completely disintegrated, and partially burned. All 40 people on board (5 crew members, 28 adult passengers, and 7 children) died.

Causes

According to the commission investigating the incident, the cause of the crash was the crew commander's violation of visual flight rules. He deviated from the route, failed to maintain a safe altitude, and flew in clouds. During the investigation, it was found that in the Frunze aviation detachment, crews regularly violated flight rules.