Aeroflot Flight 3519

Aeroflot Flight 3519 was a scheduled flight operated by a Tupolev Tu-154 from Krasnoyarsk Airport in Krasnoyatsk, Soviet Union, to Irkutsk Airport in Irkutsk, Soviet Union. On December 23, 1984, the aircraft flying this route crashed due to an engine failure. 110 occupants died; one passenger survived the accident.

Accident details

On 23 December 1984, at 2:08 p.m. KRAT (UTC/GMT+7 hours), Aeroflot Flight 3519 took off from Krasnoyarsk Airport for Irkutsk Airport, a distance of 879 km. The weather was clear with good visibility. The aircraft made a turn and climbed to 1500 m. Ground communication cleared the aircraft for a climb to 5700 m. Two minutes and one second into the flight, at a speed of 480 km/h and an altitude of 2040 m, the No. 3 (starboard) engine failed and caught fire. This was due to a metallurgical and manufacturing defect in the first stage low pressure compressor disk. The flight engineer mistakenly shut down the No. 2 (center) engine; ten seconds later, he realized his error and attempted to restart it. The crew then began to turn the aircraft around for an emergency landing. The No. 3 engine was shut off and the crew unsuccessfully fired extinguishing bottles. Without warning, the No. 2 engine began turning at takeoff speed and could not be controlled by the engine power levers. The crew was able to shut it off, but the fuel valve remained open. By that time, the fire from the No. 3 engine had spread to the pylon and the auxiliary power unit in the rear compartment and continued to spread to the No. 2 engine. The fire damaged the aircraft's electrical system, causing the voltage to drop and the hydraulics to fail.

When Flight 3519 passed the outer marker of the runway of Krasnoyarsk Airport, it was flying at a speed of 420 km/h at an altitude of 175 m, and was descending at 10 m/s. Due to the extensive fire damage that left the aircraft with only one functional engine, the crew was unable to control the plane. It banked to the right and crashed into the runway at 2:15 pm at a 50-degree angle. The time between the start of the fire and the crash was four minutes and 30 seconds. The only survivor was one passenger, a 27-year-old man, who was badly injured. The other 110 people aboard the aircraft died. The aircraft was destroyed and partially burned in the crash.