An-2 crash near Khanabad
Yevlakh aviation company “AZAL-Agro” Antonov An-2 · Shot down by ground fire during the Armenian–Azerbaijani armed conflict in Karabakh
From Khojaly to Yevlakh
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
- 7 · 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
- Unknown
Antonov An-2
- Aircraft type
- Antonov AN-2
- 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-40704
- Onboard fatalities
- 7
- Route
- From KhojalyTo Yevlakh
Approximate · Estimated position: Khnapat, near the place the Wikipedia article names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
The An-2 crash near Khanabad was an air disaster that occurred on 29 October 1991 in Nagorno-Karabakh. An An-2 aircraft of the Yevlakh aviation company “AZAL-Agro” was operating a flight on the Khojaly–Yevlakh route, but was shot down by ground fire during the Armenian–Azerbaijani armed conflict in Karabakh and crashed 1 km north of the village of Khanabad, Askeran District, NKAO. All 7 people on board were killed — 5 passengers and both pilots.
Crash
According to the Azerbaijani historian Mehman Suleymanov, after the start of the Karabakh conflict the airport near Khojaly was used by Armenian forces to transfer weapons and ammunition. To prevent this, Azerbaijani troops took the airport under their control and removed the technical staff, made up of Armenians, from work at the airport. As a result, the work at the airport was assigned to employees of Yevlakh Airport. Every day specialists were brought from Yevlakh to Khojaly Airport to work on the engineering and technical equipment, and they then returned back. The aircraft that crashed was operating one of these flights. On the morning of 29 October the An-2 aircraft brought technical staff to Khojaly Airport and was then returning with them.
At 15:30, 1 km north of the village of Khanabad, Askeran District, the aircraft crashed at an altitude of 320 metres. Initially, without an investigation being carried out, it was announced that the aircraft had flown into a mountain in fog and crashed. This version was also broadcast in the evening television news. According to Suleymanov, this was done deliberately to conceal the true cause of the crash from the public of the republic.
It later emerged that the aircraft had been shot down by ground fire from 7.62 mm small arms. According to Azerbaijani sources, the aircraft was shot down by Armenian forces.
As Suleymanov notes, because of the crash 22 days later of a Mi-8 helicopter near the village of Karakend with high-ranking officials of the republic on board, the story of the An-2 crash did not receive due attention. Had appropriate measures been taken in connection with the aircraft crash and its causes investigated, then the helicopter crash near the village of Karakend and the subsequent crash of a Mi-8 helicopter near Shusha in January 1992 could, in Suleymanov's opinion, probably have been avoided.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Russian Wikipedia article “Катастрофа Ан-2 под Ханабадом” (revision 150407013, 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
Russian Wikipedia article: Катастрофа Ан-2 под Ханабадом
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 150407013 · 2025-12-02 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q20571346
- 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
- ru Wikipedia article "Катастрофа Ан-2 под Ханабадом" (page 10971647, revision 150407013), 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
- not stated in the Wikipedia article's infobox or opening paragraph
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Russian Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.