What happened
A cargo operation scheduled from Ulan-Ude to Ufa, which included several intermediate stops such as Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Petropavl, Kurgan, and Chelyabinsk, encountered a severe emergency approximately 20 minutes after departure. The flight was transporting a load of 663 kg of cargo along with five crew members and three passengers. While cruising at an altitude of 2,400 meters, a passenger alerted the crew to a fire originating in the rear section of the cabin.
As smoke infiltrated both the passenger area and the cockpit, the crew attempted to suppress the flames but were unsuccessful. In response to the spreading fire, the pilot initiated a descent to perform an emergency landing in a nearby prairie. The aircraft subsequently crash landed in an open field situated 4 km from the village of Kharat. Although all eight occupants managed to evacuate the wreckage, the aircraft was partially destroyed by the resulting flames. Tragically, one female passenger succumbed to her injuries 40 hours after the incident.
Findings
Investigations into the fire revealed that the cargo included several wooden crates holding 20-liter bottles of flammable liquids, which were positioned on a layer of wood chips. These containers had been reused frequently and had not been cleaned; consequently, the wood chips had become saturated with flammable fluids, potentially due to improperly sealed bottles. The fire was triggered when hot air from the aircraft heating system circulated into the cabin, igniting the contaminated wood chips.