Il-14 crash in Antarctica (1979)

The 1979 Il-14 crash in Antarctica was an air crash that occurred on Tuesday 2 January 1979 in Antarctica at Molodyozhnaya Station, involving an Il-14FKM aircraft, which killed 3 people.

Crash

The aircraft was working in Antarctica as part of the 24th Soviet Antarctic Expedition and was carrying 9 of its members, including the expedition leader S. E. Korotkevich, from Molodyozhnaya Station to Mirny with an intermediate landing at Mawson. The airliner was fitted with ski landing gear. It was flown by a crew from the 229th flight detachment consisting of the commander (PIC) V. S. Zavarzin, co-pilot Yu. T. Kozlov, navigator A. A. Kostikov, flight engineer V. I. Shalnev and flight radio operator G. Sh. Uzikaev.

The sky over the station at that time was completely covered by stratocumulus cloud at a height of 700 metres, a fresh easterly (80°) wind was blowing, the air temperature was 0 °C, and visibility reached 10 kilometres. In the afternoon, at 15:20 Moscow time, the Il-14 began its take-off from the ice airfield on a heading of 140°. After a take-off run of 1000 metres the airliner lifted off the airfield surface and the landing gear was retracted. Then at a height of 70—80 metres and 2000—2300 metres from the aerodrome reference point (KTA), the crew began a left turn when, according to eyewitnesses, the aircraft was suddenly thrown into a bank to the left. The crew tried to bring the machine back to a normal attitude, but at 15:21 the airliner, rapidly descending on a heading of 90° with a left bank of 60—70°, 2200 metres from the KTA on an azimuth of 130° (1000 metres from the end of the runway with an azimuth of 110° and 500 metres to the left of its centreline), crashed into the dome of the glacier at a height of 20 metres above the aerodrome level (290 metres above sea level). From the impact the left wing and the cockpit were destroyed, and the fuselage was broken in half, with wrinkling along its entire length. No fire broke out.

As a result of the accident the aircraft commander was killed immediately, and then within a day the co-pilot and the flight engineer also died. All the others received various injuries; later five seriously injured were flown on a C-130 aircraft belonging to the US Air Force to a hospital in New Zealand. Later, after being transferred to Moscow and several months after the crash, the flight radio operator died of his injuries. But since more than 30 days had already passed since the accident, he was not included in the list of fatalities. Thus, officially 3 people were killed in the crash.