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Aeroflot Flight 902

Coordinates: 56°1′45.84″N 93°4′3″E / 56.0294000°N 93.06750°E / 56.0294000; 93.06750
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Aeroflot Flight 902
A Tupolev Tu-104A, similar to the accident aircraft
Accident
Date30 June 1962 (1962-06-30)
SummaryStall, loss of control (official) / Accidental shootdown (unofficial)
SiteBeryozovsky District, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Soviet Union
Aircraft
Aircraft typeTupolev Tu-104A
OperatorAeroflot/Far East
RegistrationСССР-42370
Flight originKhabarovsk Airport
1st stopoverOmsk Airport
2nd stopoverIrkutsk Airport
DestinationVnukovo Airport
Occupants84
Passengers76
Crew8
Fatalities84
Survivors0

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

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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

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Specific

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

General

56°1′45.84″N 93°4′3″E / 56.0294000°N 93.06750°E / 56.0294000; 93.06750