Aeroflot Flight 145

Aeroflot Flight 145 was an aviation accident that occurred on 29 January 1970, near Murmansk, involving a Tu-124V operated by Aeroflot. The flight, on a route from Leningrad to Murmansk, crashed, resulting in 11 deaths.

The accident

On the day of the accident, the crew from the 205th flight squadron consisted of captain Daniil Antonov, first officer Vladislav Lazovsky, navigator Leonid Arlavitin and flight engineer Valery Kravchenko. Flight attendants Tamara Naroditskaya and Lyudmila Stefanskaya served in the cabin. At 17:57, the aircraft departed from Leningrad's Pulkovo airport and reached an altitude of 8,400 metres.

On approach to Murmansk's Kilp-Yavr airport (Murmansk-3), at 19:13, the crew received an instruction from the air traffic controller to descend to an altitude of 2,400 metres, with a landing approach along a magnetic heading of 35°. The captain began the descent. The weather conditions at that time were favourable for flight: cloud cover with a base of 470 metres, and visibility was 6 kilometres. At 19:21, the controller instructed the flight to descend to 1,500 metres and then to 700 metres. At 19:22, the captain acknowledged receipt of the instructions. At 19:25, the pilots reported having completed the fourth turn, coming out at a distance of 40 kilometres from the runway and 10 kilometres to the right of the centreline. The aircraft continued its descent, although the Kilp-Yavr controller had not yet detected flight 45083 on radar. In addition, radio communication was unstable because of nearby airfields in the region communicating with other aircraft.

At 19:27, the Tu-124, configured for landing (flaps and gear extended), struck a wooded hill near Lake Kodyavr at a nose-down angle of 3°, in darkness. The impact occurred at an altitude of 320 metres above sea level, 240 metres above the level of the airport, 29.5 kilometres from the runway threshold and 8 kilometres to the right of the runway centreline. The aircraft continued to slide along the snow-covered slope, which had a gradient of 4–4.5°. The wings and engines were torn off by the impact with the trees and the fuselage broke behind the cockpit. The fuselage was dragged for 624 metres. No fire broke out at the impact site.

Five people died instantly from the impact with the trees. Because of the extreme cold, another six people died of hypothermia before the rescuers arrived. In total, 11 people died in the crash: three crew members (the captain, the navigator and the flight engineer) and eight passengers.