An-12 crash near Bada

The An-12 crash near Bada was an aviation accident that occurred on 5 August 1994 near Bada. A Russian Air Force An-12 military transport aircraft was operating a flight on the route Dzhida — Bada — Chita, but while approaching to land at Bada airfield the aircraft struck a hill and was completely destroyed. All 47 people on board were killed — 41 passengers and 6 crew members.

Crash

An An-12 (factory number 00347001) of the 36th Separate Mixed Aviation Regiment was performing a flight from Dzhida to Chita with an intermediate stop in Bada, and on board were 6 crew members and 41 passengers — a group of officers. At 9 in the morning local time the aircraft departed from Dzhida.

At Bada there was continuous cloud with a base of 400—500 metres and variable low cloud. To determine whether a landing was possible, commander Sushkov decided to perform a check approach. The flight director cleared the approach down to the outer locator. While performing this approach, at a distance of 17 kilometres the An-12 deviated 500 metres to the left. At that time the regular flight director was at the landing zone controller's position, and he began giving commands to line up with the landing heading. 8—9 kilometres from the airfield the aircraft was flying at an altitude of 500 metres at a speed of 270 km/h on a heading of 281° and at an angle of attack of 12°. While correcting the deviation from the glide path, the vertical rate of descent was set at 6 m/s and was not corrected when the glide path was intercepted. When the controller gave the command "Left onto landing heading", the pilots executed it with a delay, and moreover the bank was only 2—5°. Because of this the An-12 deviated from the landing heading, and 6 kilometres from the airfield its return disappeared from the radar screen, as it was masked by terrain returns. Although the crew reported that they were monitoring the descent glide path, in the event of the return disappearing from the radar the controller should have given a command to go around. However, this command was never transmitted.

At a speed of 260—270 km/h (instead of the established minimum of 290 km/h) the aircraft descended to an altitude of 300 metres, which was the crew's weather minimum. The ground was not in sight, but nevertheless the descent was continued and soon the An-12 descended below the safe altitude — 250 metres. There were 16 seconds left before the collision when the angle of attack increased to 15°, after which the machine abruptly, with a sideslip and without changing heading, deviated up to 400 metres to the right. The crew restored the speed and levelled the bank, while continuing the descent. The An-12 was flying at an indicated airspeed of 260 km/h and descending at a vertical rate of 3—4 m/s when, 5.2 kilometres from the runway and 430 metres to the right of the landing heading, it struck the top of a 140-metre-high hill with its wing. On hitting the ground the aircraft exploded and burned, and all 47 people on board were killed.