Utair Flight 579
Boeing 737-8AS · Runway overrun due to pilot error and windshear
From Vnukovo International Airport (VKO) to Sochi International Airport (AER)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA18WA277
- 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
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- Event fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 1
- Occupants
- 172
- Survivors
- 172
- 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
- 18
- 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
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
Boeing 737-8AS
- Flight
- UT579
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- Category
- Airplane
- 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
- VQ-BJI
- Operator
- Utair
- Onboard fatalities
- 0
- Route
- From Vnukovo International Airport (VKO)To Sochi International Airport (AER)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Non-U.S., Commercial
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Landing
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Runway excursion
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
On 1 September 2018, Utair Flight 579, a Boeing 737-800 on a scheduled domestic flight from Moscow to Sochi, Russia, with 164 passengers and 6 crew, overran the runway and caught fire while landing at Sochi, injuring 18 occupants. One airport employee died of a heart attack.
Accident
The flight departed from Vnukovo Airport at 12:30 am local time with 166 passengers and six crew. The flight crew aborted the first two approaches to Sochi before committing to a third that resulted in the overrun. The aircraft touched down at 2:57 am and overran runway 06, came to rest on the bed of the Mzymta River and caught fire, prompting an evacuation.
Eighteen occupants were injured; injuries included burns and carbon monoxide poisoning. Transportation Minister Yevgeny Dietrich confirmed that an airport employee died of a heart attack during the emergency response.
Thunderstorms were reported over Sochi at the time of the accident. The aircraft received damage to its belly, wings and engines. The airport operator reported that the fire was extinguished within eight minutes.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
An accident investigation was launched by the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) of Russia. Two days after the crash on 3 September, the IAC reported that the flight recorders had been recovered from the aircraft, the data were retrieved successfully and would be analyzed. The committee completed examination of the accident site and was making preparations for moving the aircraft. The United States National Transportation Safety Board, representing the State of Design and State of Manufacture of the aircraft, and the United Kingdom's Air Accidents Investigation Branch, representing the State of Registry, were invited to participate in the investigation.
The Investigative Committee of Russia also launched a probe into the crash, with a Southern Transport Department official stating that "a criminal investigation has been opened into the emergency landing... on suspicion of inadequate services with a risk to clients' health."
The IAC released a preliminary report on 6 November 2018.
On 12 December 2019, the IAC released their final report on the accident. The cause of the accident was the flight crew ignoring repetitive windshear warnings when the aircraft experienced low-level horizontal windshear and the crew's decision to land on the runway when its conditions at the time of the accident prohibited doing so. Contributing factors included violation of standard operation procedures, improper use of the autopilot, poor crew resource management training, and late deployment of the spoilers.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Utair Flight 579” (revision 1360484449, 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
NTSB narrative
The Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK) of Russia has notified the NTSB of an accident involving a Boeing 737 airplane that occurred on September 01, 2018. The NTSB has appointed a U.S. Accredited Representative to assist the MAK of Russia's investigation under the provisions of ICAO Annex 13 as State of Manufacturer of the airplane.All investigative information will be released by the MAK of Russia.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: Utair Flight 579
- Article
- Utair Flight 579
- Revision
- 1360484449 · 2026-06-21 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q56424561
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA18WA277
- Event ID
- 20180901X54734
- Case number
- DCA18WA277
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Utair Flight 579" (page 58361397, revision 1360484449); merged with NTSB case DCA18WA277 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: 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); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record DCA18WA277
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: total_fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: ground fatalities
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Utair Flight 579" and NTSB case DCA18WA277, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.