Silk Way Airlines Flight 995

On 6 July 2011, a Silk Way Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 cargo aircraft on a flight from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, crashed into a mountainside at an altitude of 3800 m while descending at night towards Bagram. All nine people on board were killed.

Despite initial claims by Taliban rebels that they had shot down the aircraft, an investigation found no evidence of external interference, while analysis of the flight recorders suggested the crash was a case of controlled flight into terrain.

Accident

The Il-76 had taken off from Heydar Aliyev International Airport in Baku at 21:26 local time (16:26 UTC) on 5 July, with 18 tonnes of cargo destined for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Bagram. It was scheduled to land at Bagram at 01:40 local time on 6 July (21:10 on 5 July UTC).

Shortly before arriving at Bagram, the flight disappeared from radar. An air traffic controller in the Afghan capital Kabul, around 40 km away from Bagram, reported seeing a flash in the sky at an altitude of about 4000 m some 25 km away.

It was later confirmed that the aircraft had struck a mountainside at around 3800 m of altitude. No distress call was received from the crew before contact was lost. The same aircraft had recently flown from Kuwait to Baku without any problem.

The wreckage of the Il-76 was located the following day in the Ghorband District, around 50 km north-west of Kabul. All nine people on board had perished.