Aeroflot Flight 1969

Aeroflot Flight 1969 was a passenger flight operated by an Antonov An-10 that crashed during the approach to Voroshilovgrad (now Luhansk) on 31 March 1971, resulting in the death of all 65 people on board. An investigation revealed that the Antonov's right wing failed structurally during the approach.

Accident

Flight 1969 was a scheduled domestic flight from Kurumoch to Luhansk. At 11:13 local time the An-10 departed Kurumoch International Airport and climbed to a cruising altitude of 7,800 m. After passing a waypoint at Rostov the crew was instructed by air traffic control (ATC) to descend to an altitude of 5,700 m. Shortly afterwards the crew received a report of weather conditions at the destination airport: solid clouds with a base of 600 m, visibility 10 km, wind 50 degrees at 8 m/s with gusts up to 12 m/s.

At 12:58:46 the crew reported an altitude of 1,200 m and were given permission to continue their descent to 600 m. The crew's last transmission was at 12:58:50 when they reported they were continuing to descend. Before the An-10 reached 600 metres, approximately 13 m2 of the right wing including an aileron, separated from the rest of the aircraft severing hydraulic lines during the process. Part of the detached wing section struck the right horizontal stabilizer, damaging its structure while tearing off part of it and its elevator. The aircraft immediately yawed right and entered a steep bank also to the right. As the Antonov plummeted towards the ground both right engines lost oil pressure, causing their propellers to go into fine pitch, inducing both of them to rotate at very high rpm. At 12:59:30 the aircraft struck the ground in a 60 degree pitch down, 50 degree bank right attitude, killing all 69 people on board.