Azerbaijan Airlines Boeing 707 accident near Baku
Boeing 707-323C · Fuel starvation
From Ürümqi Tianshan International Airport (URC) to Heydar Aliyev International Airport (GYD)
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
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 4
- 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
Boeing 707-323C
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 707
- 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
- 4K-401
- Operator
- Azerbaijan Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- 2
- Route
- From Ürümqi Tianshan International Airport (URC)To Heydar Aliyev International Airport (GYD)
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Aircraft › Fluids/misc hardware
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- Organizational issues › Management
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Not plotted · Not plotted: the Wikipedia article gives no coordinates, and its site names no town or airport that matches exactly.
From the Wikipedia article
In the Azerbaijan Airlines Boeing 707 accident near Baku, on 30 November 1995 the Boeing 707-323C freighter 4K-401 of the state airline Azerbaijan Airlines, which had departed from Ürümqi Diwopu Airport in the People's Republic of China, crashed shortly before landing at Baku Airport. Two of the six crew members on board the aircraft were killed in the accident.
Accident sequence
After the aircraft took off in Ürümqi, the landing gear could no longer be retracted. Instead of turning back and having the defect repaired, the crew decided to fly on with the aircraft to the destination airport of Baku. Because of the extended landing gear, however, the aircraft had considerable kerosene consumption during the flight. The crew managed to get the aircraft as far as Azerbaijani airspace, but on the approach to Baku there was only very little kerosene left in the tanks. The pilots first carried out a missed approach, flying over the runway in Baku at low altitude and then flying a right turn in order to line the aircraft up again for a final approach. Shortly afterwards the engines failed due to fuel exhaustion. The aircraft lost altitude, clipped the posts of a road bridge and crashed into a field 9 kilometres from the airport. Two crew members were killed.
Investigation and cause
Causes
The accident investigation identified several factors that had contributed to the accident. Due to a malfunction of the landing gear retraction mechanism, the gear remained extended, which had led to considerable kerosene consumption. In addition, on the approach to Baku the crew was initially unable to lock the left main landing gear in the extended position, which is why a missed approach had to be flown with low fuel reserves. The fuel gauges were also inaccurate, which is why the crew did not have correct information about the fuel supplies and therefore did not consult the manual for the manufacturer's recommendations for flights with little fuel. Furthermore, there was no communication from the airline regarding the characteristics of the Boeing 707's fuel system, so that the crew was not able to identify and apply the optimal operating mode for flights with little fuel. Finally, the inadequate company policy regarding operation and maintenance on the part of the companies involved, Baku Air and ALG Inc., was criticised.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Flugunfall einer Boeing 707 der Azerbaijan Airlines bei Baku” (revision 237030737, 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: Flugunfall einer Boeing 707 der Azerbaijan Airlines bei Baku
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 237030737 · 2023-09-04 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q90500203
- 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 "Flugunfall einer Boeing 707 der Azerbaijan Airlines bei Baku" (page 11235847, revision 237030737), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- none
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- operator named as an airline in the infobox
- 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.