Silk Way Airlines Flight 995

On July 6th 2011, an Il-76 cargo aircraft operated by Silk Way Airlines was conducting a flight from Heydar Aliyev International Airport, Azerbaijan to Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan.

## Accident

### Summary

Controlled flight into terrain due to crew error.

## Aircraft

### Flight Origin

Baku Heydar Aliev International Airport, Azerbaijan

### Survivors

0

The aircraft crashed into the side of a mountain at an altitude of 12,500 ft while decending towards Bagram.

## Aircraft

The aicraft involved was an Ilyushin Il-76TD, released by TAPiCH (Chkalov Tashkent Industrial Aircraft Association) with the Azerbaijan registration: 4K-AZ55, serial number: 2053420680. Built in 2005, it was operated by Silk Way Airlines.

## Crew

The flight crew consisted of:

Captain - 42 years old Sergei Viktorovich Kuzmin. He was of moderate experience, having spent 4576 hours on the IL-76 as a captain.

First officer - 32 years old Oleg Dmitrievich Marchikhin.

Navigator - 44 years old Igor Aleksandrovich Zheng.

Flight engineer - 52 years old Vladimir Gennadievich Shatobin.

Also in the cabin were flight radio operators Akhmedzhan Khadzhaev, Elnur Makhmudov and Tapdyg Gahramanov, and aircraft technicians Afgan Rahimov and Mehman Huseynov.

## Accident

The aircraft took off from Heydar Aliyev International Airport in Baku at 21:26 local time (16:26 UTC) on July 5th. It was carrying 18 tonnes of cargo desting for the International Security Assistance Force in Bagram. The aircraft was scheduled to land at Bagram at 01:40 local time on July 6th (July 5th 21:10 UTC). During the  approach, Captain Sergei Kuzmin requested a visual approach and descent at the discretion of the crew. However, the request was incorrectly formulated by the navigator. "Bagram - approach" allowed the descent having understood the request differently. When crew making a left turn, due to the fast descent, the GPWS system began played, which played for a minute, but the crew ignored it. 10 seconds before the crash, the pilots saw the mountain and tried to move the airplane into climb, but did not have time to do it.

At 00:10 local time, the plane crashed into a mountain and burned out. All 9 crew members died, some having survived the collision but later died in the post crash fire. The fire that started at the site of the disaster burned for three hours.

## Investigation

The true causes of the crash were unknown - at first the version was very popular that the plane was shot down by the Taliban (a terrorist group in Afghanistan). The Transport Administration of Afghanistan set up a special commission to investigate the causes of the plane crash, which included representatives of the Civil Aviation Administration of Azerbaijan and Silk Way specialists. The American side also took part in the investigation of the crash and rescue activities. More than 300 NATO troops monitored the safety of the commission's representatives. Specialists could not get close to the crash site for a long time - rescue helicopters were fired upon by the Taliban with guns. Only a week after the crash CVR was found, which was significantly damaged and was sent to Moscow. After deciphering the black box it became clear that the cause of the crash was a crew error, but no exact answers were given. Silk Way Airlines declined to comment on the incident.

Possible causes of the crash:

1) Too fast descent (20 m/s) to catch up with the glideslope.

2) Lack of height control.

3) Poor knowledge of English by the navigator.

4) Unexplored terrain maps.

5) The decision to make a visual approach.

All this could lead to a collision with the mountain.

CVR audio was released, the clip is available here:

## Aftermath

After the crash, at the Dombrabod cemetery (Tashkent) was built a memorial to crew, where three of them are buried (captain, engineer and navigator)

The words on the memorial read:

```
"Aviation is the destiny of the brave and determined.

We mourn and weep for our friends.

Eternal memory and respect for you will forever remain in our hearts"

```