RusAir Flight 9605

RusAir Flight 9605 (operating as RusLine Flight 243) was a passenger flight which crashed near Petrozavodsk in the Republic of Karelia, Russia, on 20 June 2011 while attempting to land in thick fog. The aircraft involved, a Tupolev Tu-134, was operating a RusAir scheduled domestic flight from Moscow. Of the 52 people on board, only 5 survived.

The investigation concluded that the crash was caused by pilot error. After receiving outdated weather information, the crew attempted to land at Petrozavodsk despite worsening weather conditions. The navigator, who was intoxicated but relied upon because of his extensive experience with the Tu-134, unintentionally guided the aircraft off course. As they were trying to line up with the runway, the crew continued descending in an attempt to break through the fog. The absence of callouts from the first officer and the intoxicated navigator caused the crew to remain unaware of their decreasing altitude until the aircraft struck trees and crashed inverted.

Accident

Flight 9605 was a chartered domestic passenger flight from Moscow's Domodedovo International Airport to Petrozavodsk "Besovets" Airport in the Northwest of Russia. The flight was originally supposed to be operated by a Bombardier CRJ-200 with RusLine being the operator of the flight, but the airline had to charter RusAir's Tupolev Tu-134 as one of RusLine's CRJ-200s was having problems. The charter was done on short notice, and on that same day the passengers were quickly transferred to the Tu-134. The flight was scheduled to take off at 22:10 local time and was expected to arrive in Petrozavodsk approximately one hour and 10 minutes later.

A total of 46 passengers were supposed to be on the flight; however, three passengers from Sverdlovsk weren't able to board the aircraft due to their late arrival in Moscow. There were 52 people on board, including 9 crew members, consisting of 4 cockpit crews, 3 cabin crews, and 2 flight technicians who were seated in the passenger area. The flight would be commanded by Captain Alexander Fyodorov with his co-pilot, First Officer Sergey Karyakin, as the non-flying pilot.

Before the flight, the crew had received the latest update on the weather information for Petrozavodsk Airport. It was forecasted to be cloudy with light rain and a marginal visibility of 2.1 km. The condition was still allowable for a flight and was not forecasted to worsen, and so the crew decided to proceed with the flight.

At 22:30 local time, after a 20-minute delay, the aircraft took off from Moscow, heading northeast towards Petrozavodsk.

Crash

A few minutes later, as light rain began to hit the aircraft, the crew turned on the windshield wipers. The aircraft then descended way past its proper altitude. The crew expected to break through the clouds, and their attention had shifted towards the outside in order to find the runway. At this point, Atayev should've said "Assessment," which would've prompted Captain Fyodorov to search the runway until the aircraft reached the minimum decision altitude (MDA) of 360 ft, at which point they would've later decided on whether to continue the approach or to go around. Atayev never uttered the word, and the aircraft kept descending further.

The aircraft were flying at 230 ft from the ground and kept descending. Seeing this, Flight Engineer Timoshenko started to do callouts of their altitude in 10-meter increments. At around 60 meters from the ground, the altitude alarm suddenly blared off, warning the crew that they had descended dangerously lower than the minima, which was met with no reaction from the cockpit crews. They were still busy shifting their attention to the outside, attempting to spot the runway.

Atayev then stated that they were only one and a half kilometers away from the runway. Seconds later, while still breaking through the clouds, a huge snap was heard from the right. The aircraft's right-wing tip had struck a 25-meter-high pine tree at a speed of 280 km/h. The collision caught the flight crews by surprise. The aircraft's nose was suddenly raised to 16 degrees, and the aircraft banked heavily to the right. First Officer Karyakin immediately shouted, "Yob tvoyu mat!"

The aircraft continued to strike multiple trees and flew for another 500 meters with a developing right bank before finally crashing inverted onto the A-133 Suoyarvi-Petrozavodsk federal highway, about 1200 m short of the runway, snapping an electric line, which caused a blackout in the local community and at Petrozavodsk Airport. The aircraft broke apart into multiple sections.