On October 13, 1972, Aeroflot Flight 217 crashed while approaching Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport, killing all 174 people aboard.
The disaster involving an Ilyushin Il-62 became one of the deadliest aviation accidents of its era, and its exact cause remains undetermined.
The aircraft, registered CCCP-86671, was operating an international passenger service from Paris-Orly Airport to Moscow, with an intermediate stop at Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg.
On board were 164 passengers and 10 crew members, including travelers from several countries.
The flight progressed without any reported major problems before beginning its approach to Sheremetyevo.
As the aircraft descended, air traffic controllers instructed the crew to reduce altitude from approximately 1,200 metres to 400 metres. The pilots acknowledged the clearance and began descending.
However, something went terribly wrong during the final approach. Instead of levelling off at the instructed altitude, the aircraft continued descending at approximately 20 metres per second. The crew made no further expected radio report to air traffic control.
The Il-62 struck the ground at high speed, approximately 620 kilometres per hour, with its landing gear retracted and spoilers not deployed. The impact destroyed the aircraft, leaving no survivors. All 174 people aboard were killed, making it a devastating loss for Soviet civil aviation.
The nationalities of those aboard reflected the international nature of the service. Among the passengers were 118 Soviet citizens, including the 10 crew members, as well as 38 Chileans, six Algerians, one Australian and one East German citizen.
Investigators examined the wreckage, aircraft systems, flight conditions and the final stages of the descent to determine what had caused the tragedy.
The investigation did not establish a definitive explanation. Available findings indicated that the aircraft’s systems had been functioning, while the weather was not considered a convincing explanation for the crash.
One leading theory was that the flight crew had become incapacitated for reasons that could not be established. Investigators considered that this might have occurred around 500 to 600 metres above the ground, approximately 25 to 30 seconds before impact. Possible explanations discussed included a lightning strike or a problem involving the aircraft’s flight controls, but neither was conclusively proven.
The disaster also drew attention because official Soviet media coverage was delayed, while reports appeared in Western media earlier. At the time, Flight 217 was the world’s deadliest civil aviation disaster, until the Kano air disaster in Nigeria surpassed it in 1973.
More than five decades later, Aeroflot Flight 217 remains a haunting aviation mystery: 174 lives were lost during what should have been a routine landing, and investigators never conclusively determined why the aircraft continued its fatal descent.
