Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise Flight 612
Tupolev Tu-154M · Entered unrecoverable stall in-flight due to pilot error
From Anapa Vityazevo Airport (AAQ) to Pulkovo Airport (LED)
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
- 170 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 170
- 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
- Airline
Tupolev Tu-154M
- Flight
- FV612
- Aircraft type
- Tupolev TU-154
- 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
- RA-85185
- Operator
- Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise
- Onboard fatalities
- 170
- Route
- From Anapa Vityazevo Airport (AAQ)To Pulkovo Airport (LED)
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Organizational issues › Development
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- Personnel issues › Miscellaneous
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
Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise Flight 612 was a scheduled passenger flight operated by Saint Petersburg–based airline Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise, flying from Anapa Airport to Pulkovo Airport in Saint Petersburg. The aircraft crashed in Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine, near the Russian border, on 22 August 2006. All 170 people on board were killed.
The crash was the deadliest aviation accident in 2006. At the time it was the deadliest crash in modern Ukrainian history and the second deadliest in Ukraine, after the 1979 Dniprodzerzhynsk mid-air collision. The death toll was eventually surpassed in 2014 when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down 40 mi east of where Flight 612 had crashed, also located in Donetsk Oblast, killing all 298 people on board.
Crash
On 22 August 2006, at 15:04 (Moscow Time), a Tu-154 airliner of Saint Petersburg-based Pulkovo Airlines took off from Anapa Airport in Russia for Pulkovo Airport in Saint Petersburg.
Half an hour later, there were thunderstorms in the vicinity of the flight, and the aircraft entered an area of severe turbulence. As a result, at 15:33, the crew requested and was given permission to climb to 39,000 ft. Just before 15:35, they reported to ATC reaching FL 390.
At 15:35:02, the crew disengaged the autopilot. Almost immediately, the stall warning sounded and then the flight's angle of attack increased to 46 degrees while its forward airspeed dropped to zero. The flight sent an SOS signal and disappeared from radar contact. It entered a deep stall from which the crew could not recover. Two of the three engines flamed out, and the crew was communicating with ATC during the stall, reporting descending. At 15:38:29, the flight crashed 45 km north-west of Donetsk, near the village of Sukha Balka, killing all 170 people on board.
"At an altitude of 37,000 ft, the aircraft sent three SOS signals, dropped sharply in altitude and sent another SOS at 9,800 ft," said Anatoli Samoshin, Vice Flight Operations Director at Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise. There were no other communications. The crash was witnessed by a local farmer and a young couple seeking shelter from the rain. They told reporters that they saw the aircraft falling out of the sky and that it burst into flames upon hitting the ground. They could see people in a number of seats that were thrown out of the aircraft on impact, but none showed any signs of life.
A Ukrainian teenager managed to record a video of the crash on a cellphone. The video of the crash was uploaded to YouTube titled "Tu-154 crash" one day after the accident.
Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise issued an announcement on their website confirming the crash, and providing hotlines and information for relatives of the passengers, or crew.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
Approximately 260 rescue personnel arrived at the scene, which was blocked off by the authorities. The field of debris and bodies was about 400 m in length. On 23 August, Ukrainian emergency service personnel concluded their search for bodies, confirming that all 170 people on board had perished. Because of the extensive crash forces and post-accident fires, rescuers believed that it would be very difficult to identify the majority of the victims at the site. The aircraft belly-flopped into a swampy area and disintegrated on impact. The search for the black boxes, which was interrupted for the night, concluded the following morning, when both recorders were found and subsequently transported to Moscow for analysis.
The Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC or MAK), after initial decoding of the flight recorder data, issued flight safety recommendations advising to avoid entering thunderstorms, to follow all maximum height limitations based on aircraft load and outside air temperature and to improve pilot training when working in these situations.
The IAC final report concluded:The cause of the crash was the aircraft being flown in manual flight mode with excessive angles of attack causing a stall with a subsequent transition to a flat spin and collision with the ground at high vertical speed. The flight manual and crew training programs did not provide instruction on manual pitch control and pitch trim during high-altitude flight. The lack of appropriate simulators contributed to the crew's lack of ability. While avoiding areas of thunderstorms and turbulence, the crew allowed the aircraft to enter pitch oscillations exceeding the angle of attack operational range. Lack of control over speed and not following the Flight Manual to prevent and recover from a stall and poor crew resource management allowed the situation to escalate into a catastrophic one.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise Flight 612” (revision 1363920954, 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: Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise Flight 612
- Revision
- 1363920954 · 2026-07-13 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q1945321
- 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 "Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise Flight 612" (page 6610624, revision 1363920954)
- 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
- airline flight number in the infobox
- 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.