Il-14 crash near Egvekinot

The Il-14 crash near Egvekinot was an aviation accident that occurred on the day of Monday, 1 September 1969, on the shore of the Gulf of the Cross near Egvekinot. An Il-14P airliner of the Anadyr OAO of the “Aeroflot” enterprise was operating scheduled domestic flight SU-55 on the Anadyr — Egvekinot route, but 5 minutes after takeoff from Anadyr's Ugolny Airport the airliner returned to the departure airport. Soon the airliner took off from the airport again, but on approach to Egvekinot's Zaliv Kresta Airport the airliner struck Mount Dumka on the shore of the Gulf of the Cross and was completely destroyed. Of the 27 people on board (22 passengers and 5 crew members), 22 people were killed and five survived, all of whom were injured.

The crash of Flight 55 became the largest aviation disaster in the history of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug.

Chronology of events

On 1 September 1969, at 09:19 local time (21:19 Moscow time on 31 August), Flight SU-55, with 22 passengers and 5 crew members, departed from Anadyr's Ugolny Airport; the flight was operated by Il-14P aircraft USSR-61731, flying from Anadyr to Egvekinot. However, only 5 minutes later (09:24), aircraft 61731 landed back in Anadyr, because Zaliv Kresta Airport, which serves the town of Egvekinot, had closed due to difficult weather conditions. A little over a couple of hours later, the weather over Egvekinot improved, and Zaliv Kresta Airport agreed to accept Flight 55. Finally, at 12:13, with 22 passengers, 5 crew members, 493 kg of mail and 452 kg of cargo on board, the Il-14 departed for Egvekinot and, after climbing, took up an altitude of 2400 metres. Half an hour after aircraft 61731 had departed Anadyr Airport for the second time, a new weather forecast arrived at the AMSG of that same airport from Zaliv Kresta Airport, according to which by the time the aircraft arrived there should already be fog there, because of which visibility in the landing area should not exceed 1000—2000 metres. The flight director at the control centre in Anadyr at that time was V. I. Popov, who, however, after receiving the forecast allowed Flight 55 to continue the flight to Egvekinot.

When the crew established contact with the Zaliv Kresta Airport controller, they received the following forecast from him: continuous nimbostratus and fractonimbus cloud with a base of 600 metres, rain, wind 180° 7 m/s, gusting to 12 m/s, visibility up to 8 kilometres, landing course 170°. The controller also gave clearance to proceed to the homing radio station (the beacon) at an altitude of 2100 metres. When the crew reported passing the beacon, the controller cleared them to descend through the cloud according to the established procedure. According to this procedure, the aircraft was to emerge from the clouds while flying on a heading of 170°, after which, while over the gulf, turn through 180°, thereby taking up the reciprocal of the landing course, 350°, after which the standard approach pattern could be flown. About 5—6 minutes after the clearance to descend through the cloud had been given, the controller asked the crew what the cloud base was, but aircraft 61731 no longer answered. After a number of unsuccessful attempts to establish contact, a search for the aircraft was begun.

The next day, search services found the destroyed and almost completely burned airliner on Mount Dumka (height 250 metres), which is 20 kilometres south-southwest of Egvekinot (24 km from Zaliv Kresta Airport on a bearing of 198°) and 9.5 kilometres west of the axis of the established cloud-descent procedure. It was established that at 13:05 the Il-14, flying in cloud on an actual heading of 240°, struck the mountain slope at a height of 235 metres, after which, breaking up, it tore up the slope, passed over the summit, and then slid down the opposite slope to a height of 170 metres and caught fire. As a result of the accident, 5 passengers were injured but survived. The remaining 17 passengers and the entire crew, that is, 22 people in total, were killed. To this day, this is the largest aviation disaster in the history of Chukotka.