Kyrgyzstan Air Company Flight 3
Air Kyrgyzstan Tupolev Tu-134A-3 · Hard landing due to pilot error and airport design flaw, resulted in aircraft's structural breakup
From Manas International Airport (BSZ) to Osh International Airport (OSS)
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
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 88
- Survivors
- 88
- 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
- 25
- 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-134A-3
- Flight
- QH3
- Aircraft type
- Tupolev TU-134
- 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
- EX-020
- Operator
- Air Kyrgyzstan
- Onboard fatalities
- 0
- Route
- From Manas International Airport (BSZ)To Osh International Airport (OSS)
Approximate · Estimated position: Osh International Airport, the airport the Wikipedia article names as the site. Where on or near it is not known.
From the Wikipedia article
Kyrgyzstan Air Company Flight 3 was a domestic passenger flight in Kyrgyzstan from Bishkek to Osh. On 28 December 2011, the plane, carrying six crew members and 82 passengers, landed hard at Osh Airport, rupturing the right wing and flipped upside down. None of the 88 on board died, but 25 of them were injured, including 16 hospitalized ones.
Accident
The accident occurred at around 12:15 am local time, while the aircraft was landing at Osh Airport. At the time at the airport there were heavy fog conditions which caused low visibility, photos also show ongoing snowfall. Flight 3 landed hard causing the right landing gear to collapse, this made the right wing impacting the ground and separating, the aircraft then overturned coming to rest upside down near the runway. The accident also caused a fuel leak that was soon put out by the emergency services. All 88 people on board evacuated safely, although 25 were injured, of which one was seriously injured.
Seven ambulances arrived at the crash scene and 17 of the injured passengers were taken to local hospitals. The local governor, Sooronbai Jeenbekov, and the mayor of Osh, Melis Myrzakmatov, and representatives from Air Kyrgyzstan and the civil aviation authority visited the crash site.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The black boxes of the Tu-134 plane that crashed at Osh airport have been deciphered, and the preliminary findings indicated that the aircraft made a hard landing on the runway at Osh Airport during landing in difficult weather conditions.
On April 22, 2013, a letter of Kyrgyzstan's Transport Prosecutor indicated that:
The airport had been operating under the approval of Category I weather minima without being properly equipped, it should have only been operating under visual flight rules. As a result, the crew was misinformed about the weather conditions to permit the descent.
The aircraft was not properly equipped, and the crew was not qualified to conduct the flight.
The observation of the airline's dispatch and the chief pilot was found to be insufficient, and they failed to answer basic questions. Kyrgyzstan's Civil Aviation Authority also failed to oversee the operation of the airline.
The aircraft was above the glide path, causing the crew to abruptly descending. This resulting in a high-rate-of-descent touchdown, exceeding its designed vertical force (2.5 G)
Text from the Wikipedia article “Kyrgyzstan Air Company Flight 3” (revision 1371633627, 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: Kyrgyzstan Air Company Flight 3
- Revision
- 1371633627 · 2026-08-27 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- 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 "Kyrgyzstan Air Company Flight 3" (page 79297592, revision 1371633627)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- airport the Wikipedia infobox site links (Wikidata code, OurAirports)
- 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.