1948 Aeroflot Ilyushin Il-12 crash

On 12 October 1948, an Aeroflot Ilyushin Il-12 crashed during a scheduled flight from Baku Airport to Tbilisi Airport. The plane or its debris was never found. All 10 people aboard the aircraft are presumed to have died.

Flight and accident

On 11 October, the aircraft took off from Tashkent on a flight to Baku and landed at Baku at 11:15 local time. Due to bad weather, the aircraft stayed overnight at Baku. The next day, the crew decided to fly to Adler via Yevlakh and Tbilisi, without ATC permission. Baku Airport was closed to incoming flights due to strong winds, but the head of the airport allowed the aircraft to take off despite the conditions and without briefing the crew. During the flight, the crew radioed three times that they could not establish a connection with the direction finder at Tbilisi Airport nor tune to the airport radio. ATC reported that the radio was working, but the direction finder could not detect the aircraft. The radio was turned on, but an incorrect call sign was given. At 12:13 the crew radioed that the airport radio was not working and that they were returning to Baku, but Baku ATC did not realize this. The crew then radioed their position, over the Yevlakh region and demanded the Yevlakh radio be turned on. This was the last message from the aircraft. Due to a malfunction of the automatic transmitter, messages were sent every 3-6 minutes instead of the normal 30 seconds. No further communications were heard from the aircraft and it never arrived at its destination. A search was launched for the missing aircraft, but it was never found.