Aeroflot Flight 331


Aeroflot Flight 331 was an international passenger flight] operated by an Ilyushin Il-62M that crashed approximately from José Martí International Airport, in Havana, Cuba, on 27 May 1977. The accident occurred after the aircraft hit power lines on its final approach to the airport during poor weather. The aircraft was attempting an emergency landing due to a fire in one of its engines. Only two of the 70 occupants on board survived.
The cause of the crash was ruled to be pilot error.

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was an Ilyushin Il-62M, registered as CCCP-86614 and operated by the International Civil Aviation Directorate of Aeroflot. At the time of the accident, the aircraft had 5,549 hours of flight and 1,144 use cycles. The aircraft was delivered to Aeroflot in 1975.

Passengers and crew

At a stopover in Lisbon, Portugal, a new crew took command of the aircraft. The five-man crew consisted of Captain Viktor Orlov, co-pilot Vasily Shevelev, navigator Anatoly Vorobyov, flight engineer Yuri Suslov, and radio operator Evgeniy Pankov. There were five flight attendants on the aircraft.
NationalityPassengersCrewTotal
Soviet Union281038
United Kingdom12012
Cuba808
Sweden303
Australia202
Guinea-Bissau202
West Germany202
Mexico101
Netherlands101
Total591069

Sequence of events

At 03:32 UTC, Flight 331 took off from Lisbon Airport and climbed to 35,000 feet. While on approach to Havana, the crew reported seeing false altitude and air pressure readings. They were then granted permission to descend from 35,000 to 15,000 feet, followed by a descent to 3,000 feet. At the time, cumulus clouds were present, visibility was 8 kilometers with a dense fog at 40 m, air pressure was 758mm Hg, and the temperature was 21° C. At 8:45:28 local time, still 1,270 m from the runway, the crew spotted four power lines 28 m high, and attempted to avoid them by pitching the nose up. However, at 23–25 m they clipped all four lines, slicing the stabilizer and severing the right outboard wing flaps. The damage caused the aircraft to making a sharp 70° bank to the right over the next three seconds. The aircraft then struck the ground with its right wing and nose and caught fire, destroying it. Only the tail section remained.
The only two survivors of the crash were a West German woman and a Soviet man. One of the victims was José Carlos Schwarz, a poet and musician from Guinea-Bissau.

Investigation

An investigation revealed serious errors made by the crew in the last moments of the flight. The main cause of the accident was a blatant violation of approach procedure, errors in calculating altitude that resulted in incorrect altitude readings that led to a premature descent, and the crew's attempt at a visual approach in dense fog. Also cited was the incorrect use of the radio altimeter by the crew.