Yak-40 crash in Bukhara

The Yak-40 crash in Bukhara was an aviation accident that occurred on the morning of Saturday, 14 December 1974 in Bukhara. A Yak-40 airliner of the Dushanbe Joint Aviation Detachment of the Aeroflot enterprise began operating scheduled domestic flight SU-124 on the route Bukhara — Dushanbe, but during take-off from Bukhara Airport the airliner did not become airborne, after which it overran the runway. Soon the airliner collided with an embankment and trees, breaking up. Of the 19 people on board — 15 passengers and 4 crew members — 7 were killed and 8 survived, of whom 4 were injured.

Crash

On 14 December 1974, Yak-40 USSR-87630 was flying from Bukhara to Dushanbe. The crew was performing from a paved runway 1,500 m long (end safety strip — 400 m) on a magnetic heading of 12° with a wind of 360° 12 m/s. According to testimony, when preparing for take-off the crew set the stabiliser to the calculated position of −3°, unlocked the control surfaces and checked their operation. At the preliminary start the flaps were extended to 20°. The line-up position was 50-100 m from the start of the runway.

18-19 seconds after the start of the take-off, at a speed of 145—150 km/h (330—360 m from the start of the take-off run), when attempting to unload the nose landing gear by pulling the control column “back”, the captain felt resistance to its movement. To his alarmed question the second pilot replied — “The controls are unlocked, the green light is on” and tried to unlock the controls with the locking circuit breaker switched off. Having failed to determine the cause of the situation, the captain attempted to create a nose-up moment by increasing the stabiliser deflection angle to −5°. Having made sure that the aircraft could not lift off, at a distance of 300 m from the end of the runway he decided to abort the take-off and gave the command to shut down the engines, close the fire valves and de-energise the aircraft. The commands were carried out by the flight engineer and the second pilot. The speed at that moment was about 215 km/h. From the moment the restriction of the control column travel was detected to the shutdown of the engines, 16-18 seconds passed The captain applied braking, but due to the high speed and considerable lift, the wheels' grip on the surface was weak.

The Yak-40 overran the runway at considerable speed, collided with a trench parapet and trees, partially broke up and caught fire. On colliding with a ditch, all the landing gear legs were torn off. On further impacts with trees both wing panels were destroyed, and after colliding with the ditch embankment the fuselage was destroyed. The aircraft came to a stop 140 m from the stopway (KPB) (540 m from the end of the runway). On impact some of the passengers, together with their seats, shifted forward, which made it difficult to open the cockpit door and the emergency exit. Having partly opened the cockpit door, the crew got 5 passengers out through the upper hatch of the cockpit and left the aircraft themselves. 3 passengers got out on their own through breaches in the fuselage. As a result of the fire the airliner burned almost completely. Of the eight surviving passengers, four were injured. The crash occurred at 11:01 local time. Examination of the UT-6D elevator locking mechanism found that its rod was extended by 17-18 mm, which corresponds to the locked position of the elevator.