Siberian Light Aviation Flight 51
Aeroservice on behalf of Siberian Light Aviation Let L-410UVP-E20 · Controlled flight into terrain caused by Pilot error
From Irkutsk International Airport (IKT) to Kazachinskoye Airport
Event
- NTSB case
- ENG21WA041
- 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
- 4 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 16
- Survivors
- 12
- 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
- 12
- 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
Let L-410UVP-E20
- Aircraft type
- Let L-410
- 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
- RA-67042
- Onboard fatalities
- 4
- Route
- From Irkutsk International Airport (IKT)To Kazachinskoye Airport
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
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
Siberian Light Aviation Flight 51 was a passenger flight on September 12, 2021, by a Let L-410 Turbolet plane, from Irkutsk north to Kazachinskoje, Irkutsk Oblast, Siberia, near Lake Baikal. The plane crashed about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the airport.
The Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC or MAK), the Russian Accident Commission, determined that the crash was caused by the crew failing to comply with night flight rules.
The flight was operated on behalf of Aeroservice LLC.
Background
The aircraft, a Let L-410 Turbolet model UVP-E20, was manufactured and commissioned in 2014. The Let-410 is built by Czech aerospace manufacturer Let Kunovice.
The airline Siberian Light Aviation, also known by the name of Sila Avia, was founded in January 2017 and flies short-haul flights in Siberia and areas just southwest of Siberia such as Omsk, Tiumen, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk and Nizhny Tagil. Their headquarters is in Magadan. At the time of the accident, there were eight L-410 aircraft and three Antonov An-28 aircraft in their fleet.
After a previously spotless safety record, Flight 51 was the airline's second serious incident in 2021. On July 17, Siberian Light Aviation Flight 42, an Antonov-28 with 2 pilots, 2 other crew, and 14 passengers, suffered a dual engine failure and crash landed in a remote area in the Vasyugan Swamp in southwestern Siberia. In that accident, all of the occupants survived the accident with one crew member requiring surgery.
Accident
After an earlier failed landing attempt at 10:35 p.m., the accident occurred at about 11:15 p.m. local time during the crew's second attempt to land the plane. In thick fog, the plane collided with trees on a cliff next to the Kirenga River, about 2.5 mi southwest of the runway.
Rescuers were quickly on the scene and initially managed to rescue everyone on board. According to the region's governor, Igor Kobzev, five people were able to leave the wreckage on their own while the others had to be helped or carried out. Four people died from their injuries within 24 hours of the accident. Of the 16 people on board, 12 survived. Three passengers and the co-pilot were killed.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
MAK, the Russian Accident Commission, launched an investigation into the accident on the same day.
The investigation showed that visibility was no more than 500 metres either at the time of the plane's first failed landing attempt or at the time of the accident.
Kazachinskoje Airport lacked sophisticated radar systems and the ability for aircraft to make instrumental landings (ILS). In the aftermath of the crash, Rosaviatsia, Russia's regulatory committee on civil aviation, has proposed an investigation and the possibility of banning night landings in Kazachinskoje and other airfields in Russia in the future, where visual landings are the only possibility and facilities for instrument landings are missing.
While the media speculates about pilot mistakes in flight in bad weather, the surviving captain has said in interviews after the accident that important navigational instruments were out of order and that played a role in the accident.
Conclusions
In the report released by the Russian Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK) it was established that the probable cause of the accident was the pilots' failure to comply with night flight rules.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Siberian Light Aviation Flight 51” (revision 1374536658, 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: Siberian Light Aviation Flight 51
- Revision
- 1374536658 · 2026-09-12 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q108556410
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record ENG21WA041
- Event ID
- 20210917103895
- Case number
- ENG21WA041
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Siberian Light Aviation Flight 51" (page 68732879, revision 1374536658); merged with NTSB case ENG21WA041 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record ENG21WA041
- 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 ENG21WA041
- Operation
- flight number in the article title
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Siberian Light Aviation Flight 51" and NTSB case ENG21WA041, 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.