An-2 ramming of a house in Voroshilovgrad

The An-2 ramming of a house was an aviation accident that occurred on Monday 27 March 1972 in the city of Voroshilovgrad, resulting from the deliberate collision of an An-2 aircraft with a four-storey residential building.

This crash was one of the first cases of pilot suicide in the history of aviation.

Timeline of events

The crew from the 99th (Voroshilovgrad) Flight Detachment was to operate mail and passenger flight No. 1633 on the route Voroshilovgrad – Severodonetsk – Svatovo. The crew had already undergone the pre-flight medical check, medical examination, and navigation and meteorological briefings when they learned that the flight had been cancelled because the Svatovo landing strip was unusable. The commander (PIC) Timofei Yakovlevich Shovkunov then told the co-pilot that he was going to have breakfast, but instead went to the aircraft parking area, where he took from the parking attendant the keys to the aircraft to which he had been assigned. However, Shovkunov then went to a completely different aircraft, tail number 42621 (serial number 1G40-22, manufactured on 18 November 1963, with 9044 hours and 9242 landings). Having accepted it from the aircraft technician, the pilot tested the engine and then, without the co-pilot and without contacting the controller, at 08:03 taxied to the start and took off from the airfield.

After turning, Shovkunov headed towards the city in the direction of the 27th Quarter. After making a turn at low altitude, he aimed the aircraft at his own flat, No. 42, on the third floor of the four-storey brick building No. 10. At 08:15 the aircraft struck the upper ceiling slab of flat No. 46, located on the fourth floor above flat No. 42. Having broken through the upper slab, the engine separated and fell to the floor of the flat along with debris from the slab. The remains of the wings together with the landing gear became stuck on the balcony of flat No. 46, while the tail unit and the cockpit flew into the attic, causing a fire. The aircraft was completely destroyed and partially burned. In the building itself, the roof above flats No. 45, 46 and 47 was destroyed. In flat No. 42 (where Shovkunov lived) the ceiling slab bent and sagged by 5 centimetres, and a crack formed through which the flat was flooded with water when the fire was being extinguished.

Timofei Shovkunov himself was killed on impact; no one in the building was injured. A forensic medical analysis of the pilot's blood found no alcohol in it.