Aeroflot Flight 6274

Aeroflot

Company type	State airline
Industry	Aviation
Founded	1923
Headquarters	Moscow , USSR
Products	Passenger and cargo air transport

Template:Infobox aircraft occurrence

Aeroflot Flight 6274 was involved in a fatal aviation accident on 17 November 1975 near the town of Gali in the Abkhazian ASSR, part of the Georgian SSR within the USSR. The incident involved an Antonov An-24RV and resulted in the loss of all 38 individuals on board.

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was an Antonov An-24RV bearing registration CCCP-46467 (construction number 27307905), produced by the Antonov Serial Production Plant on 20 July 1972. At the time of the crash, it had accumulated a total flight duration of 7,335 hours alongside 6,878 landings.

Accident

Flight 6274 was operating a route from Tbilisi to Sukhumi with a final destination of Krasnodar. The crew belonged to the 241st flight squadron and included commander Ivan Kirillovich Lysenko, first officer Fyodor Romanovich Babichev, navigator Alexander Ivanovich Velichko, and flight engineer Vyacheslav Nikolayevich Masekin. The cabin was attended by flight attendant Margarita Fyodorovna Babicheva. The An-24 departed from Tbilisi Airport at 21:23 local time (20:23 MSK) carrying 33 passengers. After takeoff, it climbed to its cruising altitude of 6,000 meters.

Weather conditions en route featured a cloud cover with bases between 200 and 300 meters and tops ranging from 4,000 to 5,000 meters. These clouds contained severe icing and strong turbulence, accompanied by heavy rainfall. The crew was informed about thunderstorms ahead and detected clusters on their onboard radar. Additionally, air traffic control at RDP Sukhumi notified them that a preceding aircraft had circumvented thunderstorms by diverting approximately 15 kilometers north of the planned path. Consequently, the crew opted to avoid the storm cells by veering 10–15 kilometers northward, notifying the controller of this deviation at 21:02. Two minutes later, at 21:04, they executed a right turn setting a heading of 320°, which deviated about 25° from their original route. At 22:08, air traffic control advised the crew to turn left to rejoin the intended course and authorized descent to an altitude of 4,200 meters. Despite this suggestion, the pilots chose to maintain their northern detour while descending to the approved altitude. By 22:11, they reported reaching 4,200 meters and switched communications to the approach controller (APP). However, this controller was replaced by the zone controller (RDP), who cleared them for further descent to 3,000 meters.

At 22:13, after reporting arrival at 3,000 meters altitude, the crew erroneously claimed to have passed over the Gali NDB. In reality, they were still approximately 8–10 kilometers short of that waypoint. The zone controller—who lacked authorization to function as an approach controller—did not monitor their position using radar or radio direction finding equipment and failed to verify their actual location. Upon receiving their incorrect report about passing Gali’s NDB traverse point, he approved descent down to 1,200 meters en route to the outer marker. Accepting this clearance based on mistaken position awareness, the crew began descending accordingly. At approximately 22:14, while flying through dense cloud cover at night roughly 25 kilometers north of their designated track and traveling at a speed of around 410 km/h, the An-24 collided with a steep incline on Mount Apshara, which stands at an elevation of 2,580 meters. This site is located about 15 kilometers south of the Kodori Range, roughly 91 kilometers east (bearing azimuth 90°) from Sukhumi Airport, and approximately 25 kilometers northeast of Gali—directly over the NDB traverse point. All occupants aboard perished in this controlled flight into terrain accident.

Causes

The main factor was the breach of ATC regulations by the dispatch team, combined with the crew's misjudgment of the aircraft's position during its descent through mountainous terrain.

Additional contributing elements included:

1. An incorrect calculation of the minimum safe flight altitude along the route near the Gali NDB. The altitude margin was applied for a corridor 17 km wide from the route instead of the required 25 km. Consequently, the minimum safe flight level was established at 2,400 meters instead of the necessary 3,600 meters. This error led to the aircraft descending below the actual safety threshold, endangering flight security.
2. Deficiencies and breaches in the provision and management of meteorological support for the flights.