Draft:Aeroflot Flight 9981

Aeroflot Flight 9981

An Aeroflot Antonov An-124 similar to the one involved.
Accident
Date	October 8, 1996
Summary	Runway excursion caused by pilot error
Site	San Francesco al Campo, Italy
Total fatalities	5
Total injuries	14
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Antonov An-124 Ruslan
Operator	Ajak Cargo on behalf Aeroflot
Registration	RA-82069
Flight origin	Chkalovsky Airport, Moscow, Russia
Stopovers	Turin (Italy) Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates)
Destination	Brunei International Airport, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
Occupants	23
Passengers	19
Crew	4
Fatalities	2
Injuries	13
Survivors	21
Ground casualties
Ground fatalities	3
Ground injuries	1

On 8 October 1996, An Antonov An-124 operating as Aeroflot Flight 9981 overran the runway at Turin Airport in the province of Turin in San Francesco al Campo. The plane crashed 400 meters beyond the end of the runway into a farmhouse, causing the death of the pilot, co-pilot and some inhabitants. One of the causes could be that the push reversers were not deactivated.

Aircraft

The An-124-100 (registration number RA-82069, factory 9773054259124, serial 07-02) was produced by the Ulyanovsk Aviation Plant "Aviastar" on August 3, 1993. In August of the same year, it was transferred to the Orel-Avia Airline. On April 18, 1994, it was leased by Aeroflot. The aircraft was owned by Ajax Cargo. It is equipped with four D-18T bypass three-shaft turbojet engines manufactured by the Zaporozhye Machine-Building Design Bureau.

Crew

The captain of the flight was Alexei Sergeevich Borodai and was the pilot in command. The first officer was Alexander Timofeevich Ugryumov. The Flight Engineer was P.F. Mazurenko. The relief captain was Oleg Igorevich Pripuskov. There was also a navigator and radio operator onboard, but their names are not known.

Accident

The aircraft, which departed at 08.15 (06.15 in Italy) from Moscow-Chkalovsky airport, arrived at Turin "Sandro Pertini" airport at about 10.25 Italian time. The stop included, in addition to the usual refueling, the loading of various luxury cars to be delivered to the Sultan of Brunei.

At 10.25 am, the plane obtained authorization to land on the runway of Caselle, which measures 3,300 meters; however, it only measured 2,350 at that time due to some maintenance work. For this reason, when they found themselves a few meters above the ground, the pilots realized that the track was too short since there were just over 350 meters left to the end of it. It was therefore decided to carry out an emergency reattachment but the procedure was too late and failed due to an oversight with not having deactivated the thrust reversers. The plane continued its descent ending up in the fields beyond the runway, lost the left tail plane and the landing gear, uncovered a house with the left wing and finally crashed into a farmhouse at 10:30. In the impact, the aircraft lost almost all of its left wing, and the front part of the cockpit visibly crumpled.

First officer Ugryumov and relief captain Pripuskov were killed. 55-year-old Fiorentino Martinetto and his 59-year-old wife Maria Perucca, who were inside the farmhouse at that time, lost their lives. 2 more people were injured and 1 of them later died of their injuries. In total 2 crewmembers died in the aircraft while 3 people died on the ground. The firefighters who rushed to the scene, immediately began to extinguish the fire that had broken out in an engine, since these were still burning and there was fear of an explosion of the residual kerosene inside the tanks. Of the 23 members aboard the Antonov, eight were unharmed and abandoned the burning aircraft through the emergency slides, while the other thirteen were found in the wreckage and rushed to the hospital. Captain Borodai and flight engineer Mazurenko survived.

Investigation

The Ivrea Public Prosecutor's Office immediately opened an investigation for negligent disaster and until late in the evening questioned the technicians of the control tower of Caselle. A second investigation was started by the ministry of transport and, following the simultaneous analysis of the black boxes, it was concluded that the pilots had activated the reversers before touching the ground. The first officer proposed to go around, but the captain refused. After a few seconds, the co-pilot proposed to go around again and the captain, after some hesitation, performed the go-around, giving maximum power to the engines but both forgot to disengage the thrust reversers. This caused the plane to stall, and it did not take off again. In addition to the late maneuver, other factors that contributed to the disaster were also the poor coordination and training of the crew, since the commander had only 431 hours of civil flight experience, and the poor planning of the approach. It emerged that no planning was carried out for a possible missed approach, despite the crew having been informed by the control tower eleven minutes before the crash that the preceding aircraft had the runway in sight at only 200 feet.

Aftermath

Captain Borodai survived the accident but had both of his legs amputated. After the accident, he worked as a methodologist at the Gagarin Air Force Academy. He died on August 10, 2024, at the age of 77. He was buried in the cemetery of the village of Sverdlovsk, Moscow Region.

Related entries

• Aviation accidents and incidents
• Antonov An-124
• Aeroflot