1997 Irkutsk An-124 crash
Russian Air Force Antonov An-124-100 · Multiple engine failure on climb-out
From Irkutsk Northwest Airport (RU-0036) to Cam Ranh Air Base, Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam
Event
- 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
- Event fatalities
- 72 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 49
- Occupants
- 23
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 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
- Military
Antonov An-124-100
- Aircraft type
- Antonov AN-124
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- 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
- "08" black
- Operator
- Russian Air Force
- Onboard fatalities
- 23
- Route
- From Irkutsk Northwest Airport (RU-0036)To Cam Ranh Air Base, Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
On 6 December 1997, a Russian Air Force Antonov An-124-100, en route from Irkutsk Northwest Airport to Cam Ranh Air Base in Vietnam, crashed in a residential area after takeoff from the airport.
Leased by Ukrainian Cargo Airways, the aircraft was carrying two Sukhoi Su-27UBK fighters (8524 and 8525) for delivery to the Vietnam People's Air Force, with a planned stopover at Vladivostok.
Three seconds after lift-off from Runway 14 at Irkutsk, the No.3 engine surged at approximately 5 m altitude. The aircraft continued to climb, but at a high angle of attack, disrupting airflow to No.1 and No.2 engines which also surged.
Unable to continue climbing the aircraft descended until it struck houses in Mira Street, 1600 m beyond the runway end, killing all 23 on board and 49 persons on the ground.
Accident
On 6 December 1997, RA-82005 was transporting two Su-27UBK fighters with a total weight of 40 tons to Vietnam.
At 14:42 IKT aircraft took off from Irkutsk. However, just three seconds after lift-off from the runway at a height of 5 m, there was a surge in engine number 3 which caused an increase of the angular velocity of the Antonov. This resulted in a shutdown of engine number 2. Eight seconds after takeoff at the altitude of 66 m, following a surge in engine number 1, the aircraft began losing altitude.
Although the pilots had tried to maintain control over the aircraft with a single remaining functioning engine, the aircraft crashed into apartment block number 45 on Grazhdanskaya Street. The tail section of the Antonov significantly damaged block number 120 and a neighboring orphanage.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
A special commission was established to investigate the causes of the disaster.
The two flight recorders, including the cockpit voice recorder, were in the center of the fire and were too badly damaged to provide meaningful data. The cause of failure of the three engines was never fully confirmed and the final conclusion of the commission has not been made public.
However, temperatures in Irkutsk were below -20 °C and it was theorized that the disaster was caused by mixing cold-weather fuel with regular fuel, which was present in the tanks of An-124 after previous flight from Vietnam. That mix would have produced ice crystals which would clog the fuel filters, which would cut the fuel flow to the engines.
In an interview with the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper, the test pilot Alexander Akimenkov said that the accident could have been caused by the call of a passenger with the Chinese radiotelephone, which affected how the electronics work.
Major General Boris Tumanov, former Chief of the Russian Air Force Flight Safety Service (1993–2002) and a member of the Commission of Inquiry into Air Accidents with military aircraft, told the Moskovsky Komsomolets that the accident was caused by failure of three engines as a result of the surge.
In 2009, Fedor Muravchenko, General Designer of Ivchenko-Progress Design Bureau (which is the developer of aircraft engines for the An-124), gave his own version of the causes of the disaster. Based on the results of this enterprise research and experiments and his own theoretical calculations, he concluded that the disaster situation was caused by high (in excess of standard) water content in the aviation fuel (kerosene) that resulted in the ice formation and clogging the fuel filters, causing the engines to surge.
Text from the Wikipedia article “1997 Irkutsk An-124 crash” (revision 1360655658, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
Sources
Wikipedia article: 1997 Irkutsk An-124 crash
- Article
- 1997 Irkutsk An-124 crash
- Revision
- 1360655658 · 2026-06-22 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q4055751
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "1997 Irkutsk An-124 crash" (page 40143932, revision 1360655658)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- operator named as an armed force or military unit in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: total_fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: ground fatalities
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Wikipedia article's infobox and coordinates, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.