Aeroflot Flight U-505

Aeroflot Flight U-505 crashed just after takeoff in Tashkent on 16 January 1987. Flight 505 was an early morning flight from Tashkent to Shahrisabz, both in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, now the Republic of Uzbekistan. The flight took off just one minute and 28 seconds after an Ilyushin Il-76, thus encountering its wake vortex. The Yakovlev Yak-40 then banked sharply to the right, struck the ground, and caught fire. All 9 people on board died.

Sequence of events

The plane was scheduled to ferry cargo from Tashkent to Shakhrisabz. On board were 1200 kg of mail and 35 kilograms of personal luggage, along with four passengers seated in the cabin. Takeoff weight was 14.4 tons, within the acceptable range. The crew was in a hurry to depart because the cargo was not loaded until 6:00 local time and they were scheduled to depart Tashkent at 5:55; hence the crew took less than a minute to complete the preflight checklist instead of the usual five minutes. They proceeded to start taxiing on taxiway three to Runway 8L. At 6:09:40 the Il-76 (CCCP-76482) took off from the runway. Immediately they contacted the control tower and requested clearance for takeoff. After receiving permission to taxi onto the runway, and at 6:10:58 they took off without explicit permission to take off, in violation of procedure. The crew put the engines to full power accelerating at 124.2 knots; but at 6:11:04 when the aircraft was no more than 20 meters off the ground it started to bank sharply to the right and at 6:11:15 it crashed into the ground, killing all nine people aboard.