Accident
On 30 September 1973, Aeroflot Flight 3932, a scheduled passenger flight from Sverdlovsk to Omsk as part of a longer route to Vladivostok, departed Sverdlovsk-Koltsovo Airport at 18:33 MSK. The weather was mild: visibility over 6 km and light northwest winds. After takeoff, air traffic control instructed the crew to make a left turn and climb to 1,500 meters; the crew acknowledged and said they would report reaching that altitude. At 18:35:25 MSK, about 5–6 seconds after setting engines to standard power, at an altitude of 350–400 meters and speed of 480 km/h, the crew began the left turn while in clouds, applying a bank angle between 35° and 40°. At 18:37 MSK (20:37 local), when the aircraft reached 1,200 meters, the bank angle increased to 75–80°, after which the crew completely lost control. The plane crashed into a nearby forest at a speed of 270 km/h, approximately five miles from Koltsovo Airport. All 108 passengers and crew on board died.
Aircraft
The aircraft involved was a Tupolev Tu-104B, registration CCCP-42506, originally assigned to Aeroflot's Uzbekistan division. It was powered by two Mikulin AM-3M-500 turbofan engines and had accumulated 20,582 flight hours and 9,412 pressurization cycles. The passenger cabin had 100 seats, so the flight was at full capacity.
Crew
Eight crew members were aboard the flight. The cockpit crew comprised Captain Boris Stepanovich Putintsev, Copilot Vladimir Andreevich Shirokov, Navigator Pyotr Gavrilivich Kanin, and Flight Engineer Ivan Yakovlevich Raponov.
Cause
The aircraft crashed due to incorrect indications by the main artificial horizon and the compass system, caused by a failure of the electrical supply, resulting in spatial disorientation of the pilots.