An-12 crash near Ulan-Ude
Aeroflot (Polar Directorate of Civil Aviation, Sheremetyevo United Air Detachment) Antonov An-12 · Errors by the crew and controller
From Tashkent to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk
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
- 8 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 0
- 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
- Airline
Antonov An-12
- Aircraft type
- Antonov AN-12
- 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
- CCCP-11337
- Onboard fatalities
- 8
- Route
- From TashkentTo Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- Environmental issues › Operating environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Not plotted · Not plotted: the Wikipedia article gives no coordinates, and its site names no town or airport that matches exactly.
From the Wikipedia article
The An-12 crash near Ulan-Ude was an aviation accident involving an An-12A cargo aircraft of Polar Aviation (Aeroflot) that occurred on Saturday, 11 September 1965 near Ulan-Ude, as a result of which 8 people died.
Crash
The aircraft was operating a cargo flight on the Tashkent — Fergana — Novosibirsk — Krasnoyarsk — Irkutsk — Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk route, during which it was carrying 10475 kg of grapes. Operating the penultimate leg of the route, the aircraft took off from Krasnoyarsk at 08:15. During the flight the weather in Irkutsk deteriorated significantly. According to data for 09:55 the sky was completely overcast with cumulonimbus and fractonimbus clouds with a base of 130 metres, there was sleet, and visibility was 1500 metres. As a result Irkutsk airport was closed, and the controller diverted aircraft 11337 to Ulan-Ude. In Ulan-Ude at that moment there was variable (10/4 oktas) stratocumulus and cumulonimbus cloud, upper and middle, with a base of 1000 metres, and visibility reached 20 kilometres. At 10:01 the crew contacted the command and control post of Ulan-Ude airport, after which it received permission to descend to a height of 4200 metres on standard pressure (760 mm Hg). A minute later the aircraft reported beginning the descent, to which it received a direct bearing — 285°, that is, the aircraft was right on the airway. At 10:07 the crew received the airport weather and reported reaching a height of 4200 metres. In response the controller reported that the aircraft was 80 kilometres from the airport, after which he instructed it to descend to a height of 1200 metres in the direction of the outer locator beacon. At 10:10 (15:10 local time) the An-12, having descended to a height of 1200 metres, 32 kilometres from the airport, in almost level flight in cloud, crashed into a forested mountain slope and was completely destroyed. The approximate crash site is the border of Kabansky and Ivolginsky Districts on the Khamar-Daban range. All 8 people on board died.
Investigation and cause
Causes
According to the conclusion of the investigative commission, the crash occurred due to the actions of the crew, who had insufficient experience of landing at unfamiliar airfields, and also due to poor coordination among the air traffic control services of Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude airports. Thus, on this leg of the flight Krasnoyarsk had been designated as the alternate airfield, although the fuel reserve on board was insufficient for a return flight from Irkutsk. Ulan-Ude, in turn, had not been designated as an alternate, and so the crew had not prepared to land there. The remaining time available for the flight to this airport severely limited preparation. Meanwhile, the Ulan-Ude airport instructions did not ensure the safety of flights by An-10 and An-12 type aircraft, since the collection of procedures permitted descent to penetrate cloud only down to 2400 metres — the minimum safe flight level, as there are mountains up to 1600 metres high in the area, and this also ensures stable display of the aircraft on the radar screen. When the controller instructed the aircraft to descend to 1200 metres, he made a serious omission — he forgot to specify that the stated height was given not relative to sea level but relative to the airfield level, that is, 515 metres higher. The crew, in turn, did not study the terrain on the airport's charts and procedures, otherwise they would have known that this height above sea level could not be safe over terrain with elevations of up to 1600 metres. This may have been contributed to by the fact that shortly before the crash the controller informed the aircraft that the airport had no fuel suitable for the An-12 and no equipment for refuelling such aircraft, as a result of which the crew was preoccupied with the problem of a long delay at the airport.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Russian Wikipedia article “Катастрофа Ан-12 под Улан-Удэ” (revision 150406368, 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-12 под Улан-Удэ
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 150406368 · 2025-12-02 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q19917141
- 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-12 под Улан-Удэ" (page 5364842, revision 150406368), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- none
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- Reviewed correction (2026-09-26): An Aeroflot Polar Aviation An-12 carrying a cargo of grapes on a multi-stop route: a state airline cargo flight. The article: "involving an An-12A cargo aircraft of Polar Aviation (Aeroflot)"
- 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.