An-24 crash near Mukachevo
Kiev United Air Squadron, Ukrainian Civil Aviation Directorate Antonov An-24 · Crew errors, atmospheric icing, design deficiencies, difficult weather conditions
From Zhuliany, Kiev (Ukrainian SSR, USSR) to Uzhhorod (Ukrainian SSR, USSR), Mukachevo (Ukrainian SSR, USSR)
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
- 24 · 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
- 0
- 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
Antonov An-24
- Aircraft type
- Antonov AN-24
- 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-46357
- Onboard fatalities
- 24
- Route
- From Zhuliany, Kiev (Ukrainian SSR, USSR)To Uzhhorod (Ukrainian SSR, USSR), Mukachevo (Ukrainian SSR, USSR)
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Organizational issues › Development
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Estimated position: Mukachevo, near the place the Wikipedia article names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
The An-24 crash near Mukachevo was an aviation accident that occurred on Sunday afternoon, 6 January 1974, on Christmas Eve, near Mukachevo. An An-24B airliner of the Kiev United Air Squadron of Aeroflot was completing scheduled domestic flight N-75 on the route Kiev — Ivano-Frankivsk — Uzhhorod. Because of difficult weather conditions, the airliner diverted to land at the alternate airfield in Mukachevo. During the approach to land at Mukachevo, the airliner abruptly pitched into a dive, after which it crashed to the ground (tearing down wires in the process) not far from Mukachevo airfield and was completely destroyed. All 24 people on board the aircraft were killed — 18 passengers and 6 crew members.
Approach and crash
At around 15:14, 4 minutes before passing the Sredneye reporting point, the crew began descending at a vertical speed of 7.5 m/s to an altitude of 2100 metres, after which it reduced speed to 300 km/h. The crew then continued descending to an altitude of 400 metres, probably having extended the landing gear beforehand. During the descent the An-24 entered cloud, from which it emerged 6 minutes later. At that time the sky over Mukachevo was overcast with stratocumulus clouds at a height of 120 metres, the air temperature was −1°C, it was calm, there was haze in the air, and visibility was 1100 metres.
Investigation and cause
Causes
After studying the flight data and examining the wreckage of the aircraft, the technical commission concluded that the anti-icing system had not been switched on.
The cause of the accident was loss of longitudinal control on the final approach due to a possibly insufficient angle-of-attack margin of the horizontal tail in the landing configuration with flaps extended to 38° when flying in light icing conditions. Contributing causes:
Absence of warning information to the crew about the stabiliser reaching angles close to critical.
Failure to switch on, or early switching off of, the wing and stabiliser anti-icing system in the presence of light icing (2-3 mm).
Absence of reliable onboard information about the presence of icing on the aircraft.
In addition, representatives of the Ministry of Aviation Industry had the following wording recorded in the final report:
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Russian Wikipedia article “Катастрофа Ан-24 под Мукачевом” (revision 153131314, 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-24 под Мукачевом
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 153131314 · 2026-05-15 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q16495728
- 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-24 под Мукачевом" (page 4504922, revision 153131314), 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
- operator is an airline according to Wikidata
- 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.