An-26 crash near Klyuchi (1983)

The An-26 crash near Klyuchi was an aviation accident that occurred on Friday 6 May 1983 in the area of the settlement of Klyuchi (Kamchatka Oblast) involving an An-26 aircraft of the Strategic Missile Forces aviation, in which 35 people were killed.

Crash

The Victory Day holiday (9 May) was approaching, so the pilots were trying to complete all the necessary flights before it. An An-26 of the 84th Separate Mixed Aviation Regiment of the Strategic Missile Forces was performing a flight to Klyuchi, which is located near the Kura test range. Its crew consisted of 6 people, and the commander was Vasily Makarov. On board were 31 passengers — 27 recruits and their escorts. This was one of two aircraft travelling from Magadan (according to some data, one of them was actually from Chita) to Klyuchi, the first carrying replacement personnel and the second carrying equipment. In Klyuchi itself it was night at the time and heavy snow was falling. While approaching to land in icing conditions and with a tailwind, the crew descended below the clouds and found themselves to the left of the extended runway centreline and at a dangerously low altitude. The navigator (G. A. Gorbachev) immediately shouted: Commander, up! Up!. The crew increased engine power and attempted to turn right to line up with the runway, but this manoeuvre led to a loss of altitude. The propeller of the right engine clipped the treetops and feathered automatically. Since the left engine continued to run at take-off power, the thrust imbalance led to an increase in the right bank and further descent. The right wing struck the building of the airfield weather station and disintegrated. Having flown over a ravine located beyond the building, the An-26 struck the ground, broke up and caught fire. The crash occurred only a couple of hundred metres from the barracks, so military personnel arrived at the scene fairly quickly; they cut an opening in the rear part of the fuselage and pulled several people out through it. In total 35 people were killed in the crash: the entire crew and 29 passengers. Only two recruits survived (some sources mention four survivors, meaning there were 35 passengers on board in total). There are also reports of 25 passengers killed, and that one of the crew members — the flight engineer — survived.