An-24 crash in Khanty-Mansiysk

The An-24 crash in Khanty-Mansiysk was an aviation accident that occurred on the afternoon of Saturday 20 March 1965 at Khanty-Mansiysk Airport. An An-24 airliner of the Sverdlovsk Combined Aviation Detachment of the Aeroflot enterprise was completing a scheduled domestic flight on the route Tyumen — Khanty-Mansiysk, but while on approach to land at Khanty-Mansiysk Airport the airliner touched down short of the runway and collided with a snow embankment. Of the 47 people on board — 42 passengers and 5 crew members — 43 were killed and four survived.

This is the largest aviation accident in the history of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and the first crash of an An-24 aircraft.

Crash

An-24 tail number USSR-46764 was to operate a flight from Tyumen to Khanty-Mansiysk. There were 42 passengers on board.

The weather conditions were simple (continuous stratocumulus cloud with a base of 400 metres, visibility was 10 kilometres). While at flight level 5400 metres, the crew began to descend, first to an altitude of 3000 metres, then 600, and then 300 metres. It then began a visual straight-in approach with a corrective turn to the right on a magnetic heading of 38°. At a height of 10 metres the An-24 "sank", after which it touched down in the snow short of the runway. After running 7 metres through the snow, it crashed at full speed into the snow embankment at the runway threshold and began to break up. According to some reports, one of the wing surfaces broke off, and then fuel from the wing tanks poured into the cabin. A fire broke out. All the people in the cabin (42 passengers and a flight attendant) died from poisoning by the toxic smoke from the burning plastic of the cabin lining.