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Tu-134 incident in Odessa (1988)

31 Dec 1988 · Odessa airport (Odessa, Ukrainian SSR, USSR)

Kaliningrad Joint Aviation Detachment, Belarusian Civil Aviation Directorate Tupolev Tu-134 · Violation by the crew of instructions and the flight manual (descent and landing at excessive speeds)

From Khrabrovo (Kaliningrad, RSFSR) to Odessa (Ukrainian SSR)

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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
Occurrence
Event fatalities
0 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
Unknown
Occupants
Unknown
Survivors
Unknown
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-134

Aircraft type
Tupolev TU-134
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-65011
Onboard fatalities
0
Route
From Khrabrovo (Kaliningrad, RSFSR)To Odessa (Ukrainian SSR)

Cause areas

  • Personnel issues › Task performance
  • Personnel issues › Action/decision

From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.

Approximate · Estimated position: Odesa International Airport, the airport the Wikipedia article names as the site. Where on or near it is not known.

From the Wikipedia article

The Tu-134 incident in Odessa was an aviation incident that occurred on Saturday, 31 December 1988 at Odessa airport involving a Tu-134A aircraft, which during its landing roll ran off the runway and stopped only one and a half metres from running onto the ground.

The cause was a gross violation of instructions by the crew, as a result of which the airliner landed at a speed considerably above the permissible one — 415 km/h. No passenger aircraft has ever landed at such a high speed.

Investigation and cause

Causes

The immediate causes of the incident were performing the approach, the landing calculation and the landing without extended high-lift devices, as well as landing at an excessive speed (415 km/h instead of the maximum permissible 330 km/h). However, the root cause of this was a breach of discipline by the captain, which consisted in failing to carry out a repeat pre-landing preparation and a checklist verification of the operations performed when the landing course was changed from 340° to 160° (that is, by 180°). Instead of approaching according to the established pattern via the outer marker, captain Krantov decided to make a straight-in approach from an altitude of 5700 metres (about 18,700 feet) at a distance of 70 kilometres (37.8 miles). The descent from the flight level to the transition level (570—600 km/h), the landing gear extension (465 km/h) and the descent along the glide path (440—450 km/h) were also performed at excessive speeds.

Translated into English with AI assistance from the Russian Wikipedia article “Инцидент с Ту-134 в Одессе (1988)” (revision 150407510, 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: Инцидент с Ту-134 в Одессе (1988)
Article
Инцидент с Ту-134 в Одессе (1988)
Translation
Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
Revision
150407510 · 2025-12-03 · retrieved 2026-09-19
Wikidata
Q16655872
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 "Инцидент с Ту-134 в Одессе (1988)" (page 4438814, revision 150407510), translated into English with AI assistance
Date
Wikipedia infobox: date
Place and country
Wikipedia infobox: site
Map position
airport the Wikipedia infobox site links (Wikidata code, OurAirports)
Aircraft, operator and route
Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
Operation
Reviewed correction (2026-09-26): A Tu-134 airliner of an Aeroflot civil aviation directorate flying from Kaliningrad to Odessa: a state airline route flight. The article: "Tupolev Tu-134 · CCCP-65011 · operator Kaliningrad Joint Aviation Detachment, Belarusian Civil Aviation Directorate · from Khrabrovo (Kaliningrad, RSFSR) · to Odessa (Ukrainian SSR)"
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.