Volga-Dnepr Flight VDA4410
Antonov AN124 100M · Accident: turbulence encounter en route
From Campbell Army Airfield (Fort Campbell) (KHOP) to Anchorage, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA12CA033
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Antonov AN124 100M
- Aircraft type
- Antonov AN124
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- RA82046
- Operator
- Volga-Dnepr
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Campbell Army Airfield (Fort Campbell) (KHOP), Fort Campbell, KYTo Anchorage, AK
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 129: Foreign
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Turbulence encounter
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On February 2, 2012, about 1442 Alaska standard time, Volga-Dnepr Airlines flight VDA 4410, an Antonov AN-124-100, registration RA82046, encountered turbulence during approach to land to Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC), Anchorage, Alaska. The airplane was not damaged but two crew members received serious injuries. The flight was operating under the provisions of 14 CFR Part 129 as an unscheduled cargo flight from Campbell Army Airfield, Fort Campbell, Kentucky to ANC.
According to flight crew statements there were pilot reports of light turbulence in the area. While the airplane was about 40 miles from ANC at an altitude of about 13,000 feet and clear of clouds, the flight encountered severe turbulence that lasted for about 3 to 10 seconds. The flight crew reported that the airplane's g-meter recorded the event at -0.6 to +2.0 Gs.
At the time of the turbulence, one maintenance crew member was in the aft technical cabin returning from the lavatory and a second maintenance crewmember was in his seat with the seatbelt buckled but was jolted against the arm rest. Both crewmembers received serious injuries.
Probable cause
an inadvertent encounter with Clear Air Turbulence that resulted in serious injuries to two crewmembers.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA12CA033
- Event ID
- 20120203X61713
- Case number
- DCA12CA033
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 13e0c8116bb8344b0116d23c1be68994575ed193a289fa4a45f8d6f33e4bed07; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:10:06.868Z.