Air crashes happen relatively infrequently, but each of them excites society in a special way. This is not surprising, because tens and hundreds of people die in them in the blink of an eye. In this regard, the Soviet Union was no exception. Let's look at the biggest plane crashes in the USSR, find out their details and statistics of victims.
Disaster List
How many plane crashes were there in the USSR? If we take into account even the smallest ones that did without victims, then their number will be very large, and it is hardly calculable at all. We will focus on the most famous and major crashes. The list of plane crashes in the USSR is as follows:
- disaster near Tiflis (1925);
- crash at Moscow Central Airfield (1935);
- death of an Air Force team in Sverdlovsk (1950);
- air crash in the Vurnar region (1958);
- disaster near Krasnoyarsk (1962);
- disaster in Sverdlovsk (1967);
- collision of planes over the Kaluga region (1969);
- disaster in Svetlogorsk (1972);
- crash in the Kharkiv region (1972);
- plane crash near Lake Nera (1972);
- disaster near Leningrad (1974);
- death of the Pakhtakor team (1979);
- collision over Zavitinsky (1981);
- disaster at Omsk airport (1984);
- air crash over Lviv (1985);
- disaster near Uchkuduk (1985);
- Kurumoch airport disaster (1986);
- crash in the Irkutsk region (1989).
This list includes not only the biggest crashes in terms of the number of victims, but also the most resonant ones. Of course, the number of plane crashes in the USSR was much higher, but we can only dwell on the above tragedies.
First disaster
The biggest catastrophes in the USSR are opened by the crash of a passenger plane Junkers F 13, which happened near Tiflis in Georgia in 1925. It is from him that you can start counting aviation tragedies in the Soviet state.
This flight was from the capital of Georgia to Sukhum. On board the aircraft were two crew members and three passengers flying on official assignments. 15 minutes after takeoff, the Junkers F 13 suddenly burst into flames. Two of the passengers made a desperate jump, but crashed to death. The rest of the passengers were killed by the explosion that occurred when the aircraft collided with the ground.
It was not possible to establish the reliable cause of the fire, but, according to one version, it happened due to the fact that one of the passengers threw a burning match on the floor.
Of course, the scale of this event isthe number of victims is significantly inferior to those catastrophes that we will talk about in the future, but nevertheless, this particular aircraft crash can be called the first in the USSR.
Crash at the Moscow airfield
The largest air crashes in the USSR continue with the tragedy that occurred in May 1935 near the Moscow airfield, which was located in the village of Sokol. It was then that the pilot Nikolai Balagin, flying on his fighter, crashed into the ANT-20 Maxim Gorky airliner. In addition to himself, 11 people from the crew of the passenger plane and 38 passengers died. Although there are also alternative data that there were 50 passengers. Thus, the total number of victims varied from 49 to 62 people.
The verdict of the investigation was unequivocal - pilot error.
The death of the Air Force team
When discussing plane crashes in Russia and the USSR, one cannot but recall the death of the players of the Air Force hockey club in early January 1950, flying from Moscow to Chelyabinsk to meet with the local team. The flight took place in rather severe meteorological conditions, which was one of the reasons for the tragedy. Another reason was problems in the organization of the air traffic control service, which, first of all, allowed “their” planes to land, and the Li-2, on which the Air Force team flew, was in the air for a long time, waiting for permission to land.
Thus, the statistics of air crashes in the USSR was replenished with another nineteen victims, of which 8were crew members and 11 were team players.
Crash in Vurnar region
Like other major air crashes in Russia and the USSR, the tragedy in the Vurnar region will remain in the memory of people for a long time, especially the relatives of the victims. It happened near the village of Bulatovo by the Chuvash ASSR in October 1958.
The Tu-104A plane was carrying a delegation of Chinese party leaders from Omsk to Moscow, but at the point of arrival due to bad weather conditions, the crew of the airliner was denied boarding. A similar situation was repeated in Gorky. Therefore, the crew decided to fly to Sverdlovsk. But this decision involved a radical change of course. When performing this complex maneuver, the aircraft was caught in a strong air current, due to which it went into a dive, which caused a collision with the ground.
The crash killed 9 crew members and 71 passengers.
Tragedy near Krasnoyarsk
Of course, all the air crashes that happened in Russia and in the USSR are a huge disaster, but among the rest, one can single out the tragedy near Krasnoyarsk in June 1962. It differed from others in that the cause was not a pilot or dispatcher error, not an aircraft malfunction, and not meteorological conditions, but an anti-aircraft missile hit.
It is noteworthy that the cause of the crash of the Tu-104 aircraft flying from Irkutsk to Omsk remained a mystery. Only when examining parts of the airliner at the crash site was it possible to detect damage to the fuselage skin. Moreover, the hole was from the outside. Only laterit turned out that military exercises were being held nearby, and due to poor weather conditions, one of the anti-aircraft missiles lost its original target and redirected to the Tu-104.
The result of this tragedy was the death of eight crew members and 76 passengers. In terms of the number of victims, there has never been such a large-scale plane crash in the USSR until then.
Plane crash in Sverdlovsk
Another tragic record was set in 1967 near Sverdlovsk, where an Il-18 passenger airliner crashed. This accident killed 99 passengers and 8 crew members. And again, all the plane crashes in the USSR that happened until then could not be compared in terms of the number of victims with this one.
The cause of the tragedy was not reliably established. The plane crashed into the ground at high speed, as a result of which it broke into many fragments. However, there were versions put forward about a technical malfunction of the device.
Catastrophe over the Kaluga Region
Of course, mentioning the largest air crashes in Russia and the USSR, one cannot deprive attention of the crash near Yukhnov in 1969. After all, it was the largest disaster in the Soviet Union in terms of the number of victims of those that happened as a result of the collision of two aircraft. In addition, it was the largest crash in the territory of the Kaluga region.
The accident occurred as a result of a collision between an Il-14M airliner and an An-12BP military transport aircraft. The result of this tragic event was the death of 24 people on board the passenger and 96 people on board the military aircraft. Thereinincluding 5 crew members of both aircraft.
The cause of the disaster was recognized as a violation of the parameters of the given height by both crews.
Tragedy in Svetlogorsk
Among other aviation accidents that occurred in the Soviet Union, the tragedy of 1972 in the city of Svetlogorsk, Kaliningrad Region, should be highlighted. It was then that the An-24T military transport aircraft, making a scheduled flight, crashed. The tragedy of this event is that when the plane crashed, it fell on a kindergarten. As a result, not only all 8 crew members died, but also three employees of the preschool institution and 24 children. The total number of victims of the tragedy was 34 people.
Although the authorities tried to hide this tragic incident, nevertheless, an event of this magnitude could not but become public knowledge. The investigation was conducted in strict secrecy, and its results were announced only in 2010, that is, after the collapse of the USSR. According to the conclusion, the cause of the tragedy was the unsatisfactory training of the pilots. But not a single criminal case in connection with this event was opened, although several dozen high-ranking military personnel were removed from their posts.
Given that the cause of the tragedy was a military aircraft, this event can be recorded as a military plane crash in the USSR.
Disaster in Kharkiv region
Another major disaster happened in 1972 in the Kharkov region near the village of Russian Lozovaya. It was there that the An-10 passenger plane crashed, flying along the Moscow-Kharkov route. The consequences of this crash were quite tragic - 122 people died, of which 7 crew members.
The investigation found that technical flaws in the structure of the aircraft were the cause of the disaster. Therefore, soon the An-10 airliners were decommissioned.
Plane crash near Moscow
Another major disaster that occurred in the same 1972 was the crash of an Il-62 aircraft flying from Paris to Moscow near Lake Nerskoye while landing at the final point of its flight. The result of this tragedy was the death of 164 passengers and 10 crew members. At that time, it was the largest plane crash that happened on the territory of Russia. At the moment, only the tragedy in Omsk in 1984 could surpass it in terms of the number of deaths.
The investigation did not reveal the exact causes of the disaster, but one of the main versions is considered to be the incorrect installation of the altimeter.
Crash near Leningrad
Statistics of air crashes in the USSR and Russia would be incomplete without mentioning the crash of the Il-18V airliner near Leningrad in 1974. By the way, it became the largest aviation accident that occurred in the vicinity of this second largest city in the Soviet Union.
The plane was heading on the flight Leningrad - Zaporozhye, and had just departed from its point of departure, when its engine caught fire. The crew tried to return the airliner to the airport, but the fire only intensified during landing, the pilots lost control of the controls, and the plane crashed. The cause of the accident was called a malfunction in the engine. At thatAt the same time, the professionalism of the actions of the pilots of the crew was noted, who acted clearly according to the instructions and did everything possible to prevent the tragedy.
As a result of this disaster, 102 passengers and 7 crew members died. The total number of victims was 109.
The death of the Pakhtakor football team
Any plane crash causes a significant response, but it especially excites the public when famous people, artists, athletes die in it. This happened in 1979, when as a result of a collision of two Tu-134 aircraft over Dneprodzerzhinsk, almost all members of the football team of the USSR Higher League Pakhtakor from Tashkent were killed. But even without taking this into account, there was not a single plane crash in the USSR that was so massive in terms of the number of victims. As a result of this tragedy, a total of 178 people died from both aircraft, including 17 players of the Pakhtakor team and 13 crew members of the airliners. Not a single crash in the history of the Soviet Union has known such a large number of victims before. In addition, this disaster still ranks second in the world in terms of the number of deaths as a result of a collision of two airliners.
According to the conclusions of the official investigation, the cause of such a large-scale tragedy was the dispatcher's error.
Survivor
Of course, the collision of two planes over Zavitinsky in 1981 would hardly have been included in the list: "The biggest plane crashes in the USSR." It is remarkable in a completely different way. It is with this event that the only one of allpassengers a woman who survived a plane crash in the USSR. It was she who made this tragedy known to the whole world.
Larisa Savitskaya, that was the name of the survivor of a plane crash in the USSR, was returning from her honeymoon to her native Blagoveshchensk on the An-24 plane together with her husband. The tragedy occurred at an altitude exceeding 5000 meters, when the airliner collided with a Tu-16 military aircraft. Then the official cause of the disaster will be the inconsistency between the civil and military dispatch services.
During the collision of the planes, Savitskaya was sleeping, and she woke up from a strong push and a frost burn due to depressurization of the hull. Part of the plane, which was a woman who survived a plane crash in the USSR, fell into a birch landing, which in some way softened the fall. In addition, she was lucky that she was in the tail section of the plane, which was the least affected by the crash.
Nevertheless, as a result of the fall, Larisa Savitskaya received a severe concussion, lost almost all her teeth, received several spinal injuries, and fractured limbs and ribs, but still she remained alive and could even move. But since the crash site of this part of the plane was quite far from settlements, rescuers found Larisa only two days later.
So she is the only survivor of the plane crash. In the USSR, information about this collision was hidden for a long time. Larisa Savitskaya became famous all over the world only in 2000, whenall the details of the incident.
There was only one case like this. In 1972, a man was saved by falling from a height exceeding 10,000 meters after an airplane exploded. This person turned out to be the Yugoslavian Vesna Vulovich, a flight attendant who survived a plane crash. The USSR, before the incident with Savitskaya, who fell from a height exceeding 5000 meters, did not know such precedents. This woman was the only one of 38 people on board both planes who was able to survive the crash over Zavitinsky.
Tragedy in Omsk
The tragedy that happened at the Omsk airport in 1984 has a number of details that distinguish it from the number of similar incidents. The fact that it did not occur in the air, but on the ground, is a distinctive feature of this plane crash. In the USSR, this happened infrequently. In addition, in terms of the number of victims, this tragedy is the largest of those that occurred on the territory of Russia.
As a result of a collision between a landing Tu-154 airliner and snowplows, 169 passengers and 4 crew members were killed. One passenger and five crew members survived.
Catastrophe near Lviv
Listing the largest plane crashes in the USSR, we should mention the tragedy that happened in 1985 in the Lviv region, Ukraine. After the disasters near Kharkov and Dneprodzerzhinsk, this was the largest air crash in terms of the number of victims that occurred on the territory of this Soviet republic.
The cause of the disaster was the collision of the An-26 military transport aircraft and the Tu-134A airliner, which committedflight from Tallinn to Chisinau with a stopover in Lvov. As a result of the incident, which happened in the immediate vicinity of the city of Zolochiv, Lviv region, 79 passengers of a civilian aircraft and 9 military aircraft, as well as six crew members from each aircraft, died. There were no survivors, and the total number of victims was 94 people.
As a result of the investigation, it was found that the cause of the crash was the error of the controllers.
Tragedy near Uchkuduk
As you can see, major air crashes in Russia and the USSR happened quite often, but the most significant of them in terms of the number of victims should be considered the crash near Uchkuduk on the territory of the Uzbek SSR. This happened in 1985, at the last stage of the existence of the country of the Soviets. Not a single disaster in the Soviet Union had such a large number of dead people. The total number of victims was 200 people, of which 191 were passengers and 9 were crew members.
The cause of the tragedy was that during the flight from Karshi to Leningrad, the crew of the Tu-154 airliner lost control, as a result of which the plane fell into a tailspin and fell. According to the official version of the investigation, the main part of the blame for what happened lies with the pilots, who deviated from the requirements of the standards, gaining maximum altitude, and then failed to cope with the control in an emergency.
Crash in Kuibyshev
Another major disaster at the end of the Soviet Union was the crash of the Tu-134 at the airport in the city of Kuibyshev - Kurumoch. The tragedy of this eventaggravated by the fact that it happened as a result of the pilot's neglect of his duties. He bet the crew members that he could land the airliner blind. This attempt was extremely unsuccessful. The criminal negligence of the crew commander Alexander Klyuev claimed the lives of 70 people. Only 24 out of 94 crew and passengers survived.
The pilot himself survived and was sentenced by the court to 15 years in prison. But later this term was revised and replaced by six years in prison.
Disaster in the Irkutsk region
The last major aviation accident that occurred on the territory of the USSR can be considered a tragedy that occurred in 1989 in the Irkutsk region. Then a Yak-40 passenger plane flying from Irkutsk to Zheleznogorsk collided with a Mi-8 military helicopter. The crash killed 33 people on board the plane and 7 soldiers flying in a helicopter.
The investigation showed that the cause of the disaster, as has happened more than once, was the inconsistency between the actions of civil and military aviation controllers.
This was the last major plane crash in the country, which by that time was itself suffering the largest geopolitical catastrophe.
Conclusion
Of course, all air crashes in Russia and the USSR are tragic in their own way, but we tried to focus on the most large-scale or resonant of them. But, of course, this list of eighteen tragedies does not pretend to be completely objective, and eachthe reader, if desired, can add to it the plane crash that occurred in the Soviet Union, the scale of which he considers worthy of this.
At the same time, we should not forget: despite the fact that at the moment there is no such state as the USSR, air crashes continue to take the lives of our compatriots. The memory of each such tragedy, regardless of its scale, must always live in the hearts of the people.
