Aeroflot Flight 1668

1968 aviation accident

Aeroflot Flight 1668
Accident
An-24 CCCP-47357, sister ship of the accident aircraft
Date	6 January 1968 (1968-01-06)
Summary	Loss of control for reasons unknown
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Antonov An-24B
Operator	Aeroflot
Registration	CCCP-47733
Flight origin	Yakutsk Airport Sakha Republic, Russia
1st stopover	Olyokminsk Airport
2nd stopover	Lensk Airport
3rd stopover	Ust-Kut Airport
Last stopover	Yemelyanovo International Airport
Destination	Tolmachevo Airport
Passengers	39
Crew	6
Fatalities	45
Survivors	0

Aeroflot Flight 1668 was a scheduled flight from Yakutsk to Novosibirsk with stopovers at Olekminsk, Lensk, Ust-Kut and Krasnoyarsk that crashed shortly after take-off from Olekminsk on 6 January 1968. All 45 people on board died. The subsequent investigation was unable to determine the root cause of the accident.

Accident

At 18:10 local time the flight departed Olyokminsk bound for Lensk in good weather conditions. Ten minutes later the crew contacted air traffic control (ATC) and reported their altitude as 4,500 meters. At 18:24 the flight requested a position report and ATC responded that radar showed the aircraft 75 kilometers from Olyokminsk on a heading of 271 degrees. At 18:28 radar contact with the aircraft was lost and attempts to communicate with the flight by radio were unsuccessful. Three hours and 22 minutes later the crew of an Antonov An-2 flying west of Olekminsk discovered several fires burning on the ground. Helicopters sent to investigate discovered the crash site. The next day at 16:00 search teams reached the wreckage of flight 1668. There were no survivors.^[1]^[2]

Aircraft

Construction of the Antonov An-24B involved, serial number 69901001, was completed at the Antonov aircraft factory on 27 November 1966. At the time of the accident, the aircraft had sustained a total of 1,543 flight hours and 1,083 takeoff and landing cycles.^[3]^[4]

Aftermath

Members of the search and rescue team recorded their eyewitness accounts of the approximately 715 meters wide crash site:^[2]

In the winter of 1968, we, the young aircraft technicians, were mobilized to search the area where the wreckage of the aircraft fell. There were severe frosts. Christmas was coming. The forest consisted of a thick fir grove, and all the trees were hung with small multicolored patches - the remnants of clothes torn from people, like Christmas trees. The sight was creepy ...
But the young girl fastened to the miraculously surviving chair made the strongest impression on everyone. She apparently did not suffer in any way, and seemed to be a fabulous fairytale who had fallen asleep in this magical dressed up Christmas forest ... ^[5]

Investigation

The accident was investigated by the State Supervisory Commission for Flight Safety. Concerns about crew training, preflight preparation of the aircraft and ATC operation were eliminated early in the investigation. The agency compiled data from ATC including recorded radio transmissions and radar plots in an attempt to determine the cause. Two minutes before the flight disappeared from radar the sound of a transmitter being switched on was heard. The source of this transmitter sound was never determined. Investigators discovered that the aircraft suddenly entered a steep descent followed by both wings and the empennage separating from the fuselage due to high aerodynamic loads. At about 18:27 the airliner was in an 80 degree nose down attitude on a heading of 270 with a left bank. The aircraft struck trees then crashed into the ground heavily and was completely destroyed by impact forces and fire.^[1]^[2]

Investigations were unable to determine the exact cause of the accident but it was theorized that a part of the aircraft detached and damaged the tail or that an aircraft flight control system failed. Another theory was that the flight was brought down by a surface-to-air missile, but no evidence supporting this ever surfaced.^[1]^[2]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c "Saturday 6 January 1968". aviation-safety.net. Aviation Safety Network (ASN). Retrieved 6 December 2018.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Dmitry Ertsov, Alexander Fetisov. "An-24B catastrophe of the Yakut UGA near Olekminsk". www.airdisaster.ru. Air Disaster RU. Retrieved 6 December 2018.
^ "Crash of an Antonov An-24B near Olekminsk: 45 killed". www.baaa-acro.com. Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives. Retrieved 6 December 2018.
^ "Accident details January 06, 1968". www.planecrashinfo.com. Plane Crash Info. Retrieved 6 December 2018.
^ "Самая крупная авиакатастрофа в небе Якутии" [The largest plane crash in the sky of Yakutia]. www.Ykt.ru (in Russian). Ykt RU. July 2012. Archived from the original on 24 December 2012. Retrieved 6 December 2018.

Aeroflot

Part of the SkyTeam alliance

Subsidiaries

Active	Pobeda Rossiya
Inactive	Dobrolet Donavia Orenair SAT Airlines Vladivostok Air
Exited	Aurora Nordavia (now Smartavia)

Fleet

Accidents and
incidents

1950s	Flight 31 Kiev mid-air collision Flight 04 Тu-104 Kanash crash Flight 120 Flight 200 Flight 315
1960s	Flight 315 Flight 207 Flight 036 Flight 068 Flight 245 Flight 902 Flight 415 Flight 03 Flight 213 Flight 191 Flight 25 Flight 012 Flight 366 Flight 663 Flight 721 Flight 101/X-20 Flight 542 Flight 513 Flight 99 Flight 065 Flight 2723 Flight 5003 Flight 2230 Flight L-51 Flight 1668 Flight 15 Flight 831 Flight N-826
1970s	Flight U-45 Flight 1661 Flight 3630 CCCP-11000 crash CCCP-12996 crash Flight 1969 Flight 1912 Flight 773 Flight 2174 Flight 1491 Flight 558 Flight 1036 Flight 217 Flight 6263 Flight 141 Flight 630 Flight 6551 Flight 109 Flight A-13 Flight 3932 Flight 964 Flight 19 Flight 2022 CCCP-75559 crash Flight 662 Flight 2003 Flight 3739 Flight 909 Flight 1802 Flight 418 Flights 7957 and 31 Flight 2415 Flight N-36 Flight 3843 Flight 5003 Flight 331 Flight B-2 Flight 6709 Flight 1080 Flight 1691 Flights 7628 and 7880 Flight 5484
1980s	Flight 4225 Flight 498 Flight 811 Flight 3603 Flight 8641 Flight 411 Flight 343 Flight 5463 Flight 601 Flight 3352 Flight 3519 Flight 7841 Zolochiv mid-air collision Flight 5143 Flight 101/435 Flight 2306 Flight 6502 Flight 892 Flight U-505 Flight N-528 Flight 699 Flight 3739
since 1990s	CCCP-46472 crash Flight 2808 Flight 593 Flight 521 Flight 821 Flight 1492

v t e Aviation accidents and incidents in 1968 (1968)
Jan 6 Aeroflot Flight 1668 Jan 21 Thule Air Base B-52 crash Feb 7 Indian Air Force An-12 crash Feb 16 Civil Air Transport Flight 10 Feb 29 Aeroflot Flight 15 Mar 6 Air France Flight 212 Mar 24 Aer Lingus Flight 712 Mar 27 Yuri Gagarin's MiG-15 crash Mar 27 Ozark Air Lines Flight 965 Apr 5 Hawker Hunter Tower Bridge incident Apr 8 BOAC Flight 712 Apr 20 South African Airways Flight 228 May 3 Braniff Flight 352 May 12 Kham Duc C-130 shootdown May 22 Los Angeles Airways Flight 841 May 28 Garuda Indonesian Airways Flight 892 Jul 1 Seaboard World Airlines Flight 253A Jul 3 BKS Air Transport Flight C.6845 Jul 23 El Al Flight 426 hijacking Aug 14 Los Angeles Airways Flight 417 Sep 11 Air France Flight 1611 Oct 25 Northeast Airlines Flight 946 Nov 22 Japan Air Lines Flight 2 Nov 24 Pan Am Flight 281 Dec 2 Wien Consolidated Airlines Flight 55 Dec 12 Pan Am Flight 217 Dec 24 Allegheny Airlines Flight 736 Dec 26 El Al Flight 253 Dec 26 Pan Am Flight 799 Dec 27 North Central Airlines Flight 458 Dec 27 Ozark Air Lines Flight 982 Dec 31 MacRobertson Miller Airlines Flight 1750
1967 ◄ ► 1969

Aviation accidents and incidents in 1968 (1968)

Jan 6

Aeroflot Flight 1668

Jan 21

Thule Air Base B-52 crash

Feb 7

Indian Air Force An-12 crash

Feb 16

Civil Air Transport Flight 10

Feb 29

Aeroflot Flight 15

Mar 6