Aeroflot Flight 902
1962 aviation accident
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Aeroflot Flight 902 was a passenger flight on a scheduled domestic service from Khabarovsk to Moscow, with intermediate stops at Irkutsk and Omsk, Russia. The flight was operated by a Tu-104A aircraft. On 30 June 1962, with 76 passengers (including 14 children) and 8 crew members aboard, the flight departed Irkutsk on schedule, and made a timely report 50 kilometers from Krasnoyarsk. A few minutes later, an agitated voice later identified as that of the co-pilot made an incoherent emergency transmission with a background of an unusual noise.
 A Tupolev Tu-104A, similar to the accident aircraft | |
| Accident | |
|---|---|
| Date | 30 June 1962 |
| Summary | Stall, loss of control (official) / Accidental shootdown (unofficial) |
| Site | |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Tupolev Tu-104A |
| Operator | Aeroflot/Far East |
| Registration | СССР-42370 |
| Flight origin | Khabarovsk Airport |
| 1st stopover | Omsk Airport |
| 2nd stopover | Irkutsk Airport |
| Destination | Vnukovo Airport |
| Occupants | 84 |
| Passengers | 76 |
| Crew | 8 |
| Fatalities | 84 |
| Survivors | 0 |
The aircraft's wreckage was found 28 km east of Krasnoyarsk Airport, in flat terrain with small areas of forest. Investigators subsequently determined that the plane had impacted the ground upside-down at an angle of 40°. There were no survivors.[1]
Cause of disaster
The official cause of the disaster was reported to be a stall and loss of spatial orientation in cloud. A second theory was a loss of control due to a fire in the passenger cabin.[citation needed] However, damage found on the port side of the fuselage (specifically, an entry hole with signs of fire damage on the inside) was consistent with damage from an anti-aircraft missile, and there was unofficial confirmation that such a missile had gone astray during an air defense exercise in the area.[1]
Unofficial sources indicated that a fragment of the fuselage was found with a 20 cm hole and fire damage, indicating a high-speed impact. At the time of the crash, a unit at nearby Magansk had fired anti-aircraft missiles as part of an exercise. The responsible missile had allegedly lost its intended target in a storm front before hitting the Tu-104.