Il-76 crash near Kabul (1979)

The Il-76 crash near Kabul was an aviation accident involving an Il-76M aircraft of the Soviet Air Force that occurred on Tuesday, 25 December 1979, in the Kabul area (Democratic Republic of Afghanistan), killing, according to various data, from 43 to 67 people. It was the first loss of the Soviet Air Force in the Afghan War.

Crash

On 25 December 1979, the Soviet Union began the entry of its troops into the territory of Afghanistan. Preparations for this had been under way for several days; among other things, as early as the middle of the month, military transport aircraft had been redeployed to airfields in the Turkestan Military District. The order to cross the Soviet-Afghan border was given at 15:00, and at 18:00 local time (15:00 Moscow time) military transport aircraft began airlifting paratroopers to the Kabul and Bagram airfields. Among others, aircraft 86036 took part in this airlift; inside it were an engineering subunit of the 350th PDP, as well as two vehicles: a Ural-375 loaded with ammunition, and a fuel tanker. The preparations themselves were carried out in a hurry, and the crew performed the flight in a “wound-up” state. Aircraft 86036 departed from Mary and headed for Afghanistan as part of a group of three.

The airlift of troops proceeded at a high tempo. It was already night and snow was falling, and the Il-76s were arriving at intervals of a few minutes. But soon Bagram air base reported that the seventh aircraft, which was aircraft 86036, had still not arrived. Mary airfield, meanwhile, reported that it had departed from there. The crews of the other aircraft were questioned, and the crew of the eighth aircraft reported that while making its approach it had seen a flash appear in the darkness to the left of its course. In this situation, this meant that the Il-76 had crashed.

On 30 December at 16:00, Mi-8 helicopter number 420 reported finding the crash site: height 4269 (36 kilometres from Bagram airfield, 35.271 N, 69.338 E). Having deviated from the approach pattern, at 19:33 the aircraft struck a rock ridge and broke in two, after which parts of the fuselage fell into gorges and were destroyed. Everyone on board was killed. At that time, this was the largest air disaster in Afghanistan and involving the Il-76. On 1 January at 10:30, a search expedition found the forward part of the fuselage with the bodies of the pilots. The remaining part of the fuselage, with the paratroopers, equipment and weapons, had fallen into an inaccessible gorge. It was only found in 2005.