Aeroflot Flight 821

Aeroflot Flight 821 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight operated by Aeroflot-Nord,a lease airline by Aeroflot with a service agreement with Aeroflot and as its subsidiary. On 14 September 2008, the Boeing 737-500 operating the flight crashed on approach to Perm International Airport at 05:10 local time (UTC+06). All 82 passengers and six crew members were killed. Among the passengers who were killed was Russian Colonel General Gennady Troshev, an adviser to the President of Russia who had been the commander of the North Caucasus Military District (including Chechnya) during the Second Chechen War. A section of the Trans-Siberian Railway was damaged by the crash. Flight 821 was the deadliest accident involving a Boeing 737-500, surpassing the 1993 crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 733, and was the second-deadliest aviation accident of 2008, behind Spanair Flight 5022.

The primary cause of the crash was that both pilots had lost spatial orientation due to their inexperience with the Western type of attitude indicator on the aircraft. Lack of adequate rest, poor crew resource management, and alcohol consumption by the captain also contributed to the accident.

This air disaster led to Aeroflot-Nord rebranding as Nordavia, effective on 1 December 2009, and later to Smartavia in 2019.

Accident

The Boeing 737-505, registered as VP-BKO, an aircraft belonging to the Aeroflot subsidiary Aeroflot-Nord but operating as Aeroflot flight SU821, was travelling from Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport to Perm (Russia). The aircraft crashed into a railway line southwest of Perm at 5:10 am local time (13 September 2008, 23:10 UTC). The area was rainy at time of the accident (unbroken clouds at 240 m, light rain).

According to an interview given by the air traffic controller shortly after the disaster, the crew did not respond correctly to ATC commands: after going around, it turned eastward instead of westward. However, the crew reported no emergency onboard and confirmed all commands given by ATC. At 5:10 am, radio contact with the plane was lost as it crashed on the outskirts of Perm.

Aeroflot-Nord officially stated that: "The Boeing-737 carried 82 passengers on board – including seven children – and six crew. All passengers and crew were killed. As the plane was coming in for landing, it lost communication at a height of 1100 m and air controllers lost its blip. The airplane was found within Perm's city limits completely destroyed and on fire." Investigator Vladimir Markin said that "there were 82 passengers plus a baby and 5 crew on board, and by preliminary information, they are all dead as the airplane fell into a ravine near the city limits." RIA Novosti however reported that "it was possible that three people who bought a ticket for the ill-fated flight 821 to Perm did not get on board."

Both flight recorders were found and successfully decoded. The airline stated, "it pledged to pay compensation on obligatory accident insurance in full, which would make up to 2 million rubles per victim." The crash damaged and shut down a section of the Trans-Siberian Railway; rail traffic was temporarily re-routed via Chusovaya station and was restored by the evening of 14 September. The aircraft was leased by Aeroflot-Nord from Dublin-based Pinewatch Limited from July 2008 to March 2013.

It was reported that its engines caught fire at an altitude of 1000 m. Eyewitness reports stated that the plane was visibly on fire prior to crashing and hit the ground at a 30–40-degree angle. However, the low clouds (at 240 m) must have prevented any witnesses from seeing the plane for more than a few seconds and the report was subsequently discounted by the accident enquiry (see below).

The final enquiry report stated that "after the base turn, approaching the landing course at 600 m with both autopilot and autothrottle disengaged, the aircraft started climbing up to 1300 m, rolled 360° over the left wing and collided with the ground".