Date & Time:
Aug 31, 1972 at 1019 LT
Type of aircraft:
Ilyushin II-18
Operator:
Registration:
CCCP-74298
Flight Phase:
Landing (descent or approach)
Flight Type:
Scheduled Revenue Flight
Survivors:
No
Site:
Plain, Valley
Schedule:
Karaganda - Moscow
MSN:
182 0045 05
YOM:
1962
Flight number:
SU558
Country:
Russia
Region:
Asia
Crew on board:
9
Crew fatalities:
9
Pax on board:
93
Pax fatalities:
93
Other fatalities:
0
Total fatalities:
102
Aircraft flight hours:
10798
Aircraft flight cycles:
4249
Circumstances:
The four engine airplane departed Karaganda Airport at 0831LT on a schedule service (SU558) to Moscow-Domodedovo. En route, while cruising at an altitude of 7,200 meters, the crew informed ATC about smoke in the cabin and cockpit and request to divert to Magnitogorsk Airport for an emergency landing. During the descent, at a speed of 370 km/h, in a flat attitude, gears and flaps retracted, the airplane struck the ground and crashed in flames in an open field located 23 km north of the airport. The aircraft was totally destroyed and all 102 occupants were killed.
Probable cause:
The cause of the disaster was the intensive development of a fire that broke out in the rear cargo hold, which led to a complete or partial loss of the crew's working capacity, the impossibility of visual flight and observation of instruments due to smoke in the cockpit and the exclusion of the possibility of a successful flight outcome. The most likely cause of the fire was the triggering of pyrotechnic devices, the ignition or self-ignition of flammable materials in the baggage of passengers whose traces were found in the remains of baggage.
