Li-2 crash in the village of Zaozerye
Li-2 · Crew error, equipment failure
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
- 4 · 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
- Unknown
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
- Unknown
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- 4
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Fluids/misc hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Aircraft › Aircraft handling/service
- Personnel issues › Physical
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Estimated position: Zaozer'ye, the place the Wikipedia article names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
The Li-2 crash in the village of Zaozerye was an aviation disaster involving a Li-2 aircraft that occurred on 26 June 2004 in the village of Zaozerye in Ramensky District of Moscow Oblast.
Crash
On the day of the incident, the crew, not having completed the pre-flight preparation in full, arrived at the aircraft and began preparing for takeoff for a flight on the Myachkovo — Kaluga route (the crew and passengers intended to take part in the ceremonial closing of the Russian Junior Parachuting Championship at Kaluga airfield).
During the flights preceding the crash, takeoff and landing were performed by the crew in accordance with the aircraft flight manual (RLE) with the engines fed from the left front tank, which contained B-91/115 aviation gasoline. The three other tanks contained AI-95 automotive gasoline.
In violation of the RLE, before takeoff the crew set the 4-way valve to feed fuel to the engine from the left front tank, in which there remained (according to calculations) less than recommended by the Li-2 RLE, and left the rotary switch of the fuel quantity indicator on the right front tank, which led to the crew being misinformed about the sufficiency of fuel in the left front tank.
Takeoff was made at 17:25 from runway 06 in simple weather conditions. Shortly after takeoff the aircraft went into a descent with an increasing bank. The left bank had become almost vertical when the aircraft struck the roof of a 2-storey cottage in the "Solnyshko" garden partnership (SNT) in the village of Zaozerye, 2.5 km from Myachkovo airfield, with its wing, fell into the yards of two neighbouring cottages and was completely destroyed. The captain and the flight engineer died at the crash site; the second pilot and one of the passengers died shortly afterwards in hospital. The second passenger (a woman) was injured. Among the victims of the crash were the vice-president of the Aviation Enthusiasts Federation of Russia Oleg Lyakishev and the head of the FSB administrative directorate Valentin Chuikin.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
Immediately after the crash, the governor of Moscow Oblast Boris Gromov ordered all airfields to be inspected.
The commission established that during the takeoff, owing to an insufficient amount of fuel in the front left tank, its supply to the fuel system ceased, which led to the shutdown of the left engine. Moreover, the crew had violated the pre-flight preparation, and the aircraft had not undergone a single major overhaul since its restoration. An additional factor in the crash was that the flight engineer was in a state of alcoholic intoxication.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Russian Wikipedia article “Катастрофа Ли-2 в деревне Заозерье” (revision 155030051, 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 деревне Заозерье
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 155030051 · 2026-09-13 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q113409986
- 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 деревне Заозерье" (page 8859264, revision 155030051), 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
- not stated in the Wikipedia article's infobox or opening paragraph
- 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.