Aeroflot Flight 902

Aeroflot Flight 902

A Tupolev Tu-104A, similar to the accident aircraft
Accident
Date	30 June 1962 (1962-06-30)
Summary	Stall, loss of control (official) / Accidental shootdown (unofficial)
Site	Beryozovsky District, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Soviet Union
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Tupolev Tu-104A
Operator	Aeroflot/Far East
Registration	СССР-42370
Flight origin	Khabarovsk Airport
1st stopover	Omsk Airport
2nd stopover	Irkutsk Airport
Destination	Vnukovo Airport
Occupants	84
Passengers	76
Crew	8
Fatalities	84
Survivors	0

Aeroflot Flight 902 was a passenger flight on a scheduled domestic service from Khabarovsk to Moscow, with intermediate stops at Irkutsk and Omsk, Russia. The flight was operated by a Tu-104A aircraft. On 30 June 1962, with 76 passengers (including 14 children) and 8 crew members aboard, the flight departed Irkutsk on schedule, and made a timely report 50 kilometers from Krasnoyarsk. A few minutes later, an agitated voice later identified as that of the co-pilot made an incoherent emergency transmission with a background of an unusual noise. Repeated subsequent attempts to contact the flight failed.^{[ citation needed ]}

The aircraft's wreckage was found 28 km east of Krasnoyarsk Airport, in flat terrain with small areas of forest. Investigators subsequently determined that the plane had impacted the ground upside-down at an angle of 40°. There were no survivors. ^[1]

Cause of disaster

The official cause of the disaster was reported to be a stall and loss of spatial orientation in cloud. A second theory was a loss of control due to a fire in the passenger cabin.^{[ citation needed ]} However, damage found on the port side of the fuselage (specifically, an entry hole with signs of fire damage on the inside) was consistent with damage from an anti-aircraft missile, and there was unofficial confirmation that such a missile had gone astray during an air defense exercise in the area. ^[1]

Unofficial sources indicated that a fragment of the fuselage was found with a 20 cm hole and fire damage, indicating a high-speed impact. At the time of the crash, a unit at nearby Magansk had fired anti-aircraft missiles as part of an exercise. The responsible missile had allegedly lost its intended target in a storm front before hitting the Tu-104.

References

Specific

1. "Criminal occurrence description – Flight 902". Aviation Safety Network . Retrieved 19 July 2013.

General

• Kasatkin, Vasiliy (17 April 2008). "Dangerous Sky (in Russian: Опасное небо)" (in Russian). Krasnoyarskiy Rabochiy (in Russian: Красноярский рабочий). Archived from the original on 1 January 2013. Retrieved 10 October 2012.

56°1′45.84″N93°4′3″E / 56.0294000°N 93.06750°E / 56.0294000; 93.06750