Aeroflot Flight 366

Aeroflot Flight 366, also known as the Miracle on the Neva, was a water landing by a Tupolev Tu-124 of the Soviet state airline Aeroflot (Moscow division). The aircraft took off from Tallinn-Ülemiste Airport at 08:55 local time on 21 August 1963 with 45 passengers and 7 crew on board.^[1] The aircraft was scheduled to fly to Moskva–Vnukovo. After takeoff, the nose gear did not retract.^[1] Ground control diverted the flight to Leningrad – because of fog at Tallinn.^[1]

This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. (November 2021)

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Russian. (January 2017) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Russian Wikipedia article at [[:ru:Посадка Ту-124 на Неву]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|ru|Посадка Ту-124 на Неву}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Quick facts Accident, Date ...

Aeroflot Flight 366
A Tu-124 similar to the accident aircraft
Accident
Date	21 August 1963 (1963-08-21)
Summary	Fuel exhaustion due to pilot error and maintenance error
Site	Neva River Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union 59°55′11″N 30°24′13″E
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Tupolev Tu-124
Operator	Aeroflot
IATA flight No.	SU366
ICAO flight No.	AFL366
Call sign	AEROFLOT 366
Registration	CCCP-45021
Flight origin	Tallinn-Ülemiste Airport, Tallinn, Estonian SSR, Soviet Union
Destination	Moskva-Vnukovo Airport, Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Passengers	45
Crew	7
Fatalities	0
Survivors	52

Accident

Summarize

Perspective

At 10:00 local time, Flight 366 started to circle the city at 450 m (1,500 ft), in order to use fuel, reducing weight and decreasing the risk of fire in the event of a crash. The ground services at Pulkovo Airport (LED) were preparing the dirt runway for the landing. Each circuit around the city took the aircraft approximately 15 minutes. During this time the crew attempted to force the nose gear to lock into the fully extended position by pushing it with a pole taken from the cloak closet.

On the eighth and last circuit while 20 km (12 mi) from the airport, the no. 1 engine flamed out due to fuel starvation. The remaining engine ceased shortly thereafter, with the aircraft above the city center, traveling east over St. Isaac's Cathedral and the Admiralty. Upon loss of power the flight crew ditched the aircraft in the 300-metre (1,000 ft) wide Neva River.

Quick facts External image ...

External image
Photo of the plane ditched on the riverbank

Eyewitnesses saw Flight 366 upstream. Immediately after a turn, the aircraft glided over the high steel structures of the Bolsheokhtinsky Bridge with approximately 30 m (100 ft) of clearance. The Tu-124 flew over the Alexander Nevsky Bridge – under construction at the time – barely missing it. The pilot managed to land the aircraft on the river,^[1] in close proximity to an 1898-built steam tugboat.<^{[citation needed]}

The plane began to fill with water. The captain of the tugboat saw the plane in distress and went to help. He and his crew broke the aircraft's windshield to tie a cable to the cockpit's control wheel and proceeded to tow the craft to the river bank. During the tow all passengers remained on board. Passengers and crew then evacuated the cabin via an access hatch on the plane's roof.^{[citation needed]}

Remove ads

Aeroflot Flight 366

Background

Aircraft

Accident

See also

References

External links

Wikiwand - on