Amur oblast

The crash of An-2 RA-02305 aircraft occurred during the forced landing. The necessity of the forced landing was caused by the engine stopping in flight due to the destruction of the cylinder head No.1 of the ASH62-IR engine No.K16509153. The destruction of cylinder head No. 1 is of fatigue nature and occurred due to exhaustion of fatigue life of the cylinder head material and reaching its limit state. Most likely, during the last repair of the engine the crack in the cylinder head was present, but was not through and was not revealed during the inspection. The most likely contributing factor to stopping the engine in flight was the impoverishment of the fuel-air mixture due to icing of the BAC filter mesh and the presence of a rubber plug on the filter flange of the corrector.

Explosion of an engine for unknown reasons.

The probable causes of the accident were the failure of the crew to go around and the descent well below decision height without visual reference to landmarks when the aircraft approached the airfield in weather conditions below the captain's, aircraft's and airfield's minima and in dangerous/adverse weather phenomena like thunderstorm, heavy rain and severe turbulence as well as the lack of appropriate response and required actions following terrain awareness warning system alerts resulted in a controlled flight into terrain, collision with obstacles and the destruction of the aircraft.
Contributing factors:
- the crew underestimated the weather conditions at the destination airport thus taking an erroneous decision to attempt an approach in thunderstorm and heavy rain showers,
- unsatisfactory meteorological support of the flight, the dispatcher and later air traffic control provided information about visibility, cloud and wind data that did not correspond to actual conditions that were significantly worse than minimums required,
- clearance for the approach by air traffic control despite the presence of dangerous weather phenomena (thunderstorm, heavy rain) at the aerodrome, which did not correspond to the standard operating procedures at Blagoveshchensk,
- inadequate staffing with a first officer who was performing his first flight after a prolonged leave without proper preparation and training,
- unsatisfactory crew interaction and the failure to adhere to standard operating procedures, especially the call outs of approaching decision height, the absence of a decision by the commander to continue the landing or go-around and the lack of action to recommend/initiate a go around by the first officer.

Controlled flight into terrain after the crew decided to continue the flight under VFR mode in IMC conditions. It is possible that the crew lost his sense of orientation shortly after takeoff.

Engine fire on approach for unknown reasons.

Engine failure for unknown reasons.

It was determined that the crew decided to continue the approach after passing the minimum descent altitude in below minimum visibility conditions. The crew failed to respond to the GPWS warning sound and to initiate a go-around despite the fact they did not establish a visual contact with the ground and runway. It was reported that weather conditions were worse than forecast in the bulletin transmitted to the crew and there were local patches of fog in the last segment of the approach path which was considered as contributing factors.

It was determined that the collision was the consequence of a poor organization and management of flights in the area of the Zavitinsk and the non-compliance of the published procedures. The collision was made possible by a lack of interaction, coordination and communication between the civilian and military air controllers.