Aeroflot Flight 200

On October 23, 1959, an Ilyushin Il-14 operating as Aeroflot Flight 200 crashed while attempting to land at Vnukovo Airport near Moscow, Moscow Oblast, Russian SFSR, USSR. After being delayed due to bad weather, the aircraft attempted to touch down around 22:00 but crashed approximately 1,400 meters (4,500 feet) short of the runway after striking trees. Bad weather and pilot error contributed to the crash.

Background

The aircraft that crashed was an Il-14P, serial number 6341709, built in 1956 at the Tashkent Plant in Uzbekistan and delivered on August 31 of that year. It was assigned the registration CCCP-Л5086 and flew for the State Department of Azerbaijan for 2 years, based out of Baku. The aircraft was converted to an Il-14M on an unknown date. In 1958 or 1959, it was acquired by Aeroflot, re-registered as CCCP-41806, and began operating for the 107th Flight Detachment as a passenger airliner. It had flown for 4,945 hours at the time of the accident.

Accident

The airplane was in the process of flying the Baku-Makhachkala-Astrakhan-Stalingrad-Moscow route, but had been dealing with poor weather conditions that had hampered the crew on their journey. They had arrived in Stalingrad two hours late and the crew had been working for over 15 hours at the time of the crash, which may have contributed to the accident. At 14:20, the airplane took off for Vnukovo, but found it was closed due to weather conditions and the flight returned to Stalingrad at 17:15, 1 hour 55 minutes after takeoff. At 18:50 the crew again attempted to reach Moscow, but were fatigued after having been on duty for 13 hours and 50 minutes, 5 hours and 53 minutes of which were spent in the air. Due to fog, the airliner flew at only 4500 m, and visibility was just 1.5-2 km; another Il-14 that had recently landed reported that the cloud base was 50-60 m; despite this, the actual weather was not reported to the crew before they arrived. As the crew neared Vnukovo, they reported approaching the glide path, which was confirmed by ATC. Soon, at the command of the air traffic controller, the airplane turned 2° to the left and entered the track line. The controller saying "to the left two." was the last thing the pilots heard. At 22:10, the aircraft struck trees roughly 20 m off the ground, causing it to crash 1,400 m from the runway's threshold and 75 m from its center. The wreckage was found in the forest collapsed and partially burned.