Aeroflot Flight 902

Aeroflot Flight 902

A Tupolev Tu-104A, similar to the one involved in the accident, is seen here at Arlanda Airport in 1966
Accident summary
Date	June 30, 1962
Summary	Stall, loss of control (official) / Accidental shootdown (unofficial)
Site	Beryozovsky District, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia
Passengers	76
Crew	8
Injuries (non-fatal)	0
Fatalities	84
Aircraft type	Tupolev Tu-104A
Operator	Aeroflot/Far East
Registration	CCCP-42370
Flight origin	Khabarovsk Airport
1st stopover	Omsk Airport
2nd stopover	Irkutsk Airport
Destination	Vnukovo Airport

Aeroflot/Far East Flight 902 was a flight on scheduled domestic service from Khabarovsk to Moscow with intermediate stops at Irkutsk and Omsk in the Soviet Union. The flight was operated by a Tu-104A aircraft. On June 30, 1962, with 62 adult passengers, 14 children and 8 crew members, the flight departed Irkutsk on schedule, and made a scheduled report 50 kilometers from Krasnoyarsk. A few minutes later, an agitated voice later identified as that of the second pilot made an incoherent emergency transmission with a background of an unusual noise, and repeated attempts to contact the flight failed. Its wreckage was found 28 kilometers 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 degrees. There were no survivors.

At the time, the official cause of the disaster was announced to be a stall and loss of spatial orientation in clouds, or a loss of control due to a fire in the passenger cabin or other unknown reasons. However, damage found on the port side of the fuselage (specifically, an entry hole with signs of fire damage on the cabin side of the fuselage) was consistent with that that could be caused by an anti-aircraft missile, and there was an unofficial confirmation that an anti-aircraft missile had gone astray during an air defense exercise in the area.

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