Li-2 crash in Vilnius
Aeroflot (Lithuanian Civil Air Fleet Detachment, 43rd Air Squadron) Lisunov Li-2 · Crew error
From Vilnius to Shosseynaya, Leningrad
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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 8
- 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
- 4
- 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
Lisunov Li-2
- Flight
- 345
- Aircraft type
- Lisunov LI-2
- 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-84587
- Onboard fatalities
- 1
- Route
- From VilniusTo Shosseynaya, Leningrad
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Estimated position: Vilnius, near the place the Wikipedia article names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
The Li-2 crash in Vilnius was an aviation accident involving a PS-84 (Li-2P) cargo-passenger aircraft of the Lithuanian Air Group (Aeroflot) that occurred on Thursday, 17 December 1959, on the outskirts of Vilnius, killing one person.
Crash
The aircraft was operating Flight 345 from Vilnius to Leningrad with an intermediate stop in Riga. Loaded on board were medical preparations in the form of powders packed in glass bottles in crating, nylon crumb packed in sacks, and radio valves packed in boxes. The cargo was placed in the forward and rear baggage compartments, as well as in the cabin; its total weight was 1106 kg. In addition, there were also 4 passengers on board (probably accompanying the cargo). At that time the weather was calm, with variable cloud, and visibility reached 4 kilometres.
At 09:54 Moscow time, with 4 passengers and 5 crew members on board, Flight 345, under the command of captain Pautov, began its takeoff in a northerly direction on a heading of 347°. After a ground run of 680 metres along the runway, the airliner lifted into the air at a speed of only 115 km/h, after which, right near the ground, it immediately went into a steep right bank. Having miraculously not struck the runway in this bank, the crew tried to level the aircraft, but instead put it into an even steeper left bank. Having deviated 26° to the left of the runway axis, Flight 345 touched the snow with its left main landing gear leg, after which it flew 260 metres to the airfield boundary, where it again struck the ground, first with the tail wheel and then with the left landing gear leg. The airliner soared upward and flew another 240 metres, but since its speed had already been lost, the aircraft again came down onto the ground and then struck a mound, after flying over which it crashed into a ravine. Knocking down two poles along the way, the aircraft was turned to the right almost at a right angle to the runway, after which it caught fire. The entire “flight” from the point of takeoff to the crash site covered 1400 metres.
As a result of the accident, radio operator Gagarov was killed, while the other crew members were injured (the captain and the flight engineer seriously; the co-pilot and the navigator slightly). The passengers were not hurt.
Investigation and cause
Causes
During the investigation, the commission established that the tail wheel had not been locked (fixed) at the moment of takeoff, whereas otherwise the aircraft was technically serviceable. The engines, for their part, were operating at maximum (takeoff) power throughout. As for the takeoff weight, it exceeded the maximum permissible by 79 kg. The unlocked tail wheel and the overloading of the airliner certainly made the takeoff more difficult, but they were not at all what led to the crash. The cause of the accident was named as an error by the aircraft commander Pautov, who grossly violated the takeoff technique for the Li-2 aircraft. Lift-off occurred at a relatively low speed, as a result of which the aircraft reached critical angles of attack and went out of control, entering steep banks now to the right, now to the left. When the airliner veered to the left and touched the ground, the captain did not abort the takeoff, instead pulling the control column sharply back to get off the ground, but in doing so he brought his aircraft to an even greater angle of attack. As a result, aircraft 84587 quickly lost forward speed and crashed to the ground.
Having studied Boris Pautov's biography, investigators discovered that back in 1943, during the Second World War, he had been tried by a military tribunal, which sentenced him to three months' service in a penal company. When joining civil aviation, Pautov concealed this unpleasant fact, and while working as a civil pilot he was assessed negatively right up until 1957 and frequently drank heavily. However, interestingly, the commander of the air group did not dismiss such a negligent employee, instead promoting him, and in 1954 even raised Pautov to the position of aircraft commander.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Russian Wikipedia article “Катастрофа Ли-2 в Вильнюсе” (revision 154271959, 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 Ли-2 в Вильнюсе
- Article
- Катастрофа Ли-2 в Вильнюсе
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 154271959 · 2026-08-06 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q19850428
- 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 Ли-2 в Вильнюсе" (page 5457960, revision 154271959), 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
- airline flight number 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.