An-22 crash at Panagarh

The An-22 crash at Panagarh was an aviation accident that occurred on Saturday 19 December 1970 at Panagarh aerodrome (near Calcutta, India) involving a Soviet Air Force An-22 "Antei" aircraft, killing 17 people.

Crash

On 12 November 1970 the coast of East Bengal was struck by Cyclone Bhola, which became the most destructive cyclone in history (up to half a million killed). The territory of East Pakistan was particularly affected. To provide humanitarian aid, in December the 81st Military Transport Aviation Regiment was given a special assignment to transport cargo for the flood victims, for which four crews were deployed. On 19 December the crew of Lieutenant Colonel Skok, in the An-22 with tail number 09305, delivered cargo to Dacca and was now returning to India (according to some sources, to Delhi). On board were 11 crew members and 6 passengers (including an interpreter). But 43 minutes after departure, at 10:08 UTC, when the aircraft was flying at an altitude of 6250 metres (flight level 205) on a heading of 270°, all four engines unexpectedly stopped. Because the cargo cabin was unpressurised, it was impossible to go into it and inspect the power plants through the windows. In addition, the attitude indicators, airspeed indicators and radio communications failed. The crew tried several times to start the second (left inboard) engine, but without success. Then the third engine (right inboard) was started, this time successfully. However, the flight engineer then reported that the engine was not responding to movement of the throttle lever, which indicated a break in the engine control cable run, and a special mechanism had automatically set the engine to 64 % power.

Since there were passengers on board, the crew could not abandon the aircraft by parachute. At first it was intended to make an emergency landing on the surface of the Indian Ocean, but then the crew decided to head for the nearest aerodrome, Panagarh. It proved impossible to connect the third engine's generator to the on-board electrical system, and the batteries quickly ran down. Pressure in the booster hydraulic system fell, making it impossible to operate the wing high-lift devices. Also, during the descent towards the aerodrome, fire broke out in the engines, including in the third one, so at a height of 1000 metres it was shut down, after which the "Antei" went into a steep descent. The speed at that moment was about 400 km/h, whereas the normal speed should have been 240–250 km/h, but the pilots could not reduce it in the circumstances. During the flare a right bank also developed. At 10:18 UTC, in flight configuration (with flaps and landing gear retracted), the An-22 raced at a height of about a metre for about 2200 metres over almost the whole runway, after which the right wing struck the ground and began to break up. The uncontrollable aircraft crashed to the ground, was completely destroyed and burned. All 17 people on board were killed.