Yak-130 crash in Baranovichi (2021)
Belarusian Air Force Yakovlev Yak-130 · Technical malfunction and loss of control
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
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- Unknown
- 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
- 1
- 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
- Military
Yakovlev Yak-130
- Aircraft type
- Yakovlev YAK-130
- 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
- 74
- Operator
- Belarusian Air Force
- Onboard fatalities
- 2
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
The Yak-130 crash in Baranovichi was the crash of a Yak-130 combat trainer aircraft of the Belarusian Air Force in the city of Baranovichi on 19 May 2021, as a result of which pilots Major Andrei Nichiporchik and Lieutenant Nikita Kukonenko died, and a local resident, Kazimir Kuzmich, was injured.
Crash
In the daytime on 19 May, a Yak-130 and an L-39 of Lida Air Base were performing a training flight over the city. At the same time a Su-30SM was preparing for departure. The crew of the Yak-130 (aircraft 74) detected a technical malfunction. Their machine went sharply downwards and began to spin. There were moments when the aircraft regained control for a second, but then the pilots again lost control of the situation. The emergency occurred in level flight over the aerodrome. The controller gave the command «Eject! Eject! Jump!» no fewer than 10 times. The pilot of the Su-30SM came on the radio and also asked the crew to eject. At this time the pilots realised that the aircraft was heading into the city, towards residential areas. There was approximately a minute to make a decision. At a height of about fifty metres the backup system made it possible to stabilise only the direction of flight, and the crew managed to change course, but the altitude continued to fall rapidly. The pilots sought to steer the aircraft away from the populated area and, having made sure that the trajectory of the fall was clear of residential buildings, the pilots tried to eject, but because of insufficient height they died.
At 12:33 the aircraft fell near two-storey buildings in the area of Rosa Luxemburg Street, damaging three houses. The controller asked the pilot of the L-39 to check whether the crew had ejected. He reported that the pilots had not escaped. Windows in the buildings were blown out, dents from parts of the machine remained on the facade, and an opened parachute, with which one of the airmen had ejected, hung on a canopy. The aftermath of the crash was cleared up by the forces of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. A local resident was injured in one of the buildings. The man had returned from walking his dog, but the shock wave knocked him off his feet; he broke his arm and received multiple cuts from glass fragments.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
On the same day, the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Belarus opened a criminal case in connection with the aircraft crash. Experts began work at the scene in order to establish the circumstances of what had happened. They were coordinated by the first deputy chairman of the Investigative Committee of the RB, Oleg Shandarovich. A commission of the Ministry of Defence headed by the deputy minister of defence for armaments also went there. The Main Investigative Directorate opened a criminal case under Part 2 of Article 465 of the Criminal Code of the RB («Violation of the rules of flights or preparation for them, resulting through negligence in the death of two persons»). As of 20 May, the inspection of the scene had been completed, the pattern of traces had been recorded in detail, witnesses and servicemen of the air base had been questioned, and a number of necessary expert examinations had been ordered.
At the same time, the Air Force command reported the first results of decoding the Yak-130's flight recorders. Before the fall, the crew lacked the height to make a decision and eject safely. The pilots were controlling and acting on the aircraft's control stick and the pedals, which were changing the direction of flight until the moment of touching the ground.
The commander of the Air Force and Air Defence Forces, Igor Golub, citing the results of decoding the flight recorder data, stated that the Yak-130 crash occurred because of a failure of the control system. All levels of the machine's control system failed, and instantly, within one minute. The backup level remained, which worked intermittently, but which made it possible to steer the aircraft away. Golub explained that in this situation, in accordance with the requirement of the flight operations manual of the Yak-130 aircraft, the crew was obliged to abandon the machine. At this time the aircraft went into uncontrolled chaotic motion, and its trajectory began to deviate towards the city.
In the course of the official investigation it was established that the commander of the YAK-130 aircraft crew, Andrei Nichiporchik, the pilot Nikita Kukonenko, persons from among the engineering and technical staff who carried out the maintenance and preparation of the aircraft, as well as persons responsible for the organisation, support and direction of flights, committed no violations of the rules of flights and preparation for them or of other rules for the operation of military aircraft that were directly causally related to the consequences. The cause of the tragedy was named as a failure of the aircraft's control system.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Russian Wikipedia article “Катастрофа Як-130 в Барановичах (2021)” (revision 154849777, 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 Як-130 в Барановичах (2021)
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 154849777 · 2026-09-05 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q106908071
- 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 Як-130 в Барановичах (2021)" (page 8835084, revision 154849777), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia article 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
- operator named as an armed force or military unit 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.