Li-2 crash near Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk

The Li-2 crash near Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk was an aviation accident involving a Li-2 aircraft of Aeroflot that occurred on Thursday, 26 August 1954, 13 and a half kilometres from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, and as a result of which 26 people died.

Crash

The aircraft was operating passenger flight 971 from Khabarovsk to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. At 00:15, with 22 passengers (14 adults and 8 children) and 5 crew members on board, it took off from Khabarovsk and, after climbing, took up the assigned flight level of 3000 metres. At Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk's Bolshaya Elan airport there was overcast stratocumulus cloud at a height of 400 metres, and to the south down to 300 metres, a south-easterly wind was blowing at 4 m/s, and visibility reached 10 kilometres, but the peaks of the eastern hills were obscured. When flight 971 entered the airspace of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk airport, the crew received permission to descend to the height of the cloud tops, which was 1800 metres. Having tuned the radio compass to the airport's homing beacon, at 02:28 the crew began descending on a magnetic heading of 140°, which they reported to the controller. The aircraft was being flown by the co-pilot Parkhomenko, who was sitting in the left seat, while the aircraft commander (PIC) Degtyarenko sat in the right seat as instructor pilot.

At 02:37 passage of the homing beacon was reported, in response to which the controller gave permission to descend through the cloud according to the established procedure. The Li-2 began descending on a heading of 192°, and soon the aircraft reported reaching a height of 800 metres. At 02:42 the aircraft commander reported to the ground that a procedure turn had been completed and the descent continued towards the outer locator (DPRS), following a magnetic heading of 10°. At 02:45 the aircraft transmitted: "height 450, descending to the outer". This was the last radio message from aircraft L4679. At 02:50 Moscow time (09:50 local time) the Li-2, flying on a heading of 10°, struck trees on the slope of a hill 460 metres high. After sweeping through the trees over a distance of 128 metres, the airliner then struck the ground at the top of the hill, being completely destroyed up to frame 25 (half its length), and came to rest in an inverted position. The crash occurred in the area of Mount Komissarskaya, 13 and a half kilometres south-east of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and 9 kilometres from the outer locator of the Korsakov military airfield, which belonged to the Pacific Fleet aviation, that is, east of the approach pattern of Bolshaya Elan airport. The crash site was found the next day, and only one surviving passenger was found — a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Army born in 1914, who was taken to hospital in serious condition. All the other 26 people (5 crew members, 13 adult passengers and 8 children) died.