Aeroflot Flight 5398
Tupolev Tu-124 · Uncontained engine failure
From Lviv International Airport (LWO) to Kurumoch International Airport (KUF)
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
- 17 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- 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-124
- Aircraft type
- Tupolev TU-124
- 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
- CCCP-45044
- Operator
- Aeroflot
- Onboard fatalities
- 17
- Route
- From Lviv International Airport (LWO)To Kurumoch International Airport (KUF)
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Organizational issues › Development
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Estimated position: Vynnyky, the place the Wikipedia article names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
On 23 December 1973, a Tupolev Tu-124 crashed on the domestic Soviet scheduled flight Aeroflot Flight 5398 from Lviv via Kyiv to Kuibyshev, killing all 17 occupants.
Sequence of events
The Tu-124 lifted off from Lviv Airport at 22:04:49 and flew towards the south-east. The responsible controller in Lviv instructed the pilots to climb to 1,800 m towards the Zolochiv NDB and to make radio contact at 1,500 m. The pilots called the controller 2 min 15 s after take-off and reported that the left engine was on fire and that they therefore had to turn back and make an emergency landing. Because the controller did not understand this, the pilots had to repeat it twice. After that there was no further radio contact.
The partly burnt wreck was eventually found 18.3 km east of Lviv Airport, near Vynnyky, in rough terrain. The debris field was 725 m long and 125 m wide. Small, burnt aircraft parts were found as far as three to five kilometres from the accident site.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The accident investigation determined that a blade of the first compressor disc in the left engine had come loose. This caused severe vibration, which led to the rupture of lines carrying flammable fluid (fuel, hydraulic fluid, oil). As a result, 1 min 55 s after take-off a fire broke out, which eventually ate its way through the skin and the cabin floor on the left side. The control rods also showed traces of heat stress. Since the fire did not allow a return to the airport, the pilots presumably decided to land in open terrain. The aircraft finally struck the ground flat at 22:08:04 at a speed of about 500 km/h.
The cause of the blade coming loose was the failure of the retaining pins, which had below-average load-bearing capacity due to incorrect heat treatment during manufacture.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Aeroflot-Flug 5398” (revision 251248536, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Aeroflot-Flug 5398
- Article
- Aeroflot-Flug 5398
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 251248536 · 2024-12-14 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q16662568
- 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
- de Wikipedia article "Aeroflot-Flug 5398" (page 10378223, revision 251248536), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- place the Wikipedia infobox site links (Wikidata 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
- flight number in the article title
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the German Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.