2001 Omsk An-70 crash
Antonov Design Bureau Antonov An-70 · Multiple engine failure
From Omsk Airport, Russia to Yakutsk Airport, Russia
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
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 33
- Survivors
- 33
- 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
- 4
- 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
- General aviation
Antonov An-70
- Aircraft type
- Antonov AN-70
- 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
- UR-NTK
- Operator
- Antonov Design Bureau
- Onboard fatalities
- 0
- Route
- From Omsk Airport, RussiaTo Yakutsk Airport, Russia
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
On 27 January 2001, an Antonov An-70 prototype crashed close to Omsk Tsentralny Airport, Russia during testing of the aircraft. All 33 passengers and crew on board the aircraft survived.
The accident involved the sole surviving An-70 prototype, as the first prototype had been destroyed in a mid-air collision six years previously. This placed the future of the An-70 project in doubt; however, the aircraft was later repaired and returned to flight.
Accident
The aircraft arrived at Omsk at 0:30 and was refueled with 38 tons of jet fuel. 5 hours after landing, the aircraft lifted off the runway on its way to Yakutsk for cold weather testing. Within seconds of becoming airborne one of the Progress D-27 propfans reached an over-speed condition and automatically shut down. The forward propeller stopped rotating but due to the nature of the failure the aft propeller kept turning, producing negative thrust. At this point the flight crew increased power to the remaining three engines but a problem with the RPM sensors on one of them led to automatic engine shut-off. Thus, the An-70 ended up flying at low speed with only two properly functioning engines, with the third engine generating over 11,000 pounds of negative thrust and disrupting airflow across the wing.
The crew successfully made a 180-degree turn to head back towards departure airport but crash landed hard in the snow and ice within several hundred yards of the runway. Of the 33 people aboard (11 crew and 22 specialists from Antonov), 4 were injured, 1 seriously.
The accident investigators found that the pilots acted with remarkable skill to turn the aircraft around and crash-land it on the field without lowering the landing gear.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
Three possibilities for the accident were investigated. Engine/Prop malfunction, fuel or oil defects in sub-zero temperatures leading to fuel starvation due to water in the fuel system freezing, or an act of sabotage or terrorism. Sabotage & terrorism were investigated by Russia's FSB which found no corroborating evidence. The fuel crystallization theory was discounted very early by the team of experts investigating the accident, leaving an engine or a propeller malfunction the only remaining possibility.
Causes
The cause of the crash landing of the An-70 near Omsk remained the subject of much debate for a long time and the reason for heated exchange of accusations between the Antonov Design Bureau and the OAO Motor-Sich - the manufacturer of the D-27 engine. The manufacturer of the SV-27 propeller - Aerosila - also received some blame.
A report released by the investigation team in mid-March, by Ukrainian "Aviation and Time" magazine, provided preliminary details into the cause. According to the report, immediately after take-off one of the engines was automatically shut off by its electronic safeguards after it exceeded the safe RPM limit. The front set of blades of the contra rotating propeller assembly stopped but the aft part of the propeller assembly continued turning due to the damaged oil line that powered the blade actuators. This caused the negative air flow estimated at 5,000 kg/11,023 lbs. of thrust.
At the end of March 2001 Antonov's first deputy designer-general Dmitri Kiva provided further details about the cause announcing that the accident was caused by disintegration of the oil line leading to the propeller hub pitch mechanism that attaches to the engine. Kiva said that the pilots attempted to compensate for the loss of power by increasing the settings of the remaining three engines. At some point another D-27 automatically shut off after the safe RPM limit has been exceeded.
Text from the Wikipedia article “2001 Omsk An-70 crash” (revision 1374712996, 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: 2001 Omsk An-70 crash
- Article
- 2001 Omsk An-70 crash
- Revision
- 1374712996 · 2026-09-13 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q19574787
- 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 "2001 Omsk An-70 crash" (page 44351956, revision 1374712996)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from Wikidata (P17)
- 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
- Reviewed correction (2026-09-26): The Antonov Design Bureau's own prototype crashed during testing, a manufacturer's test flight, which counts as general aviation. The article: "an Antonov An-70 prototype crashed close to Omsk Tsentralny Airport, Russia during testing of the aircraft"
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- 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.