An-8 crash in Kirovabad
Soviet Air Force, 708th Separate Military Transport Aviation Regiment Antonov An-8 · Icing of the horizontal stabiliser
From Geran to Kirovabad
Event
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- Event fatalities
- 6 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- Unknown
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Military
Antonov An-8
- Aircraft type
- Antonov AN-8
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- 6
- Route
- From GeranTo Kirovabad
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Fluids/misc hardware
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Estimated position: Ganja, Azerbaijan, the place the Wikipedia article names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
The An-8 crash in Kirovabad was an aviation accident of a military transport An-8 of the Soviet Air Force that occurred on Monday 25 January 1965 in Kirovabad, in which 6 people died.
Crash
A 6-person crew from the 708th Separate Military Transport Aviation Regiment (aircraft commander — 1st class pilot Captain Sidorov) was ferrying an An-8 aircraft from the alternate aerodrome of Geran to the main aerodrome of Kirovabad. The approach to land was performed in daytime; icing was observed in the clouds, and the cloud base was 320 metres. The crew reported to the controller that they had passed the outer marker (DPRM), after which they probably extended the flaps further. But then the machine suddenly dropped its nose rapidly and at an angle of 30° crashed into the warehouses of the Kirovabad oil and fat plant, causing a fire. The entire crew died.
Investigation and cause
Causes
The cause of the crash, in the commission's opinion, was icing of the horizontal stabiliser, as a result of which the stabiliser went to supercritical angles of attack, since the ice formed on its surface reduced these very critical angles. The icing in turn was caused by an inoperative tail de-icing system, and the crew had not checked its serviceability before departure. This led to the so-called «peck» — an uncommanded pitch-over into a dive. In conditions of stabiliser icing, the maximum flap extension angle is 25°.
Only when, a year later, a crash occurred at Lakhta for the same reason did An-8 aircraft begin to be fitted with RIO-2 icing indicators. The «peck» problem was also observed in the «descendants» of the An-8: the passenger An-10 (crashes in Lviv on 16.11.1959 and 26.02.1960) and the transport An-12 (crashes near Surgut on 22.01.1971 and 31.01.1971). Subsequently, the effectiveness of the stabiliser de-icing system on the An-10 and An-12 was increased.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Russian Wikipedia article “Катастрофа Ан-8 в Кировабаде” (revision 150406892, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
Sources
Russian Wikipedia article: Катастрофа Ан-8 в Кировабаде
- Article
- Катастрофа Ан-8 в Кировабаде
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 150406892 · 2025-12-02 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q18398570
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- ru Wikipedia article "Катастрофа Ан-8 в Кировабаде" (page 5158597, revision 150406892), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- place the Wikipedia infobox site links (Wikidata coordinates)
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- operator named as an armed force or military unit in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Russian Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.