Antonov Industries

Antonov AN-8

The crew (pilots, technicians and engineers) were involved in a local test flight at Kiev-Gostomel Airport. The goal of the mission was to test the JATO propulsion system in case of an engine failure on the Antonov AN-8. For this test program, the aircraft was renamed AN-8RU version. Twenty seconds after takeoff, while climbing to a speed of 220 km/h, the JATO system was ignited. Six seconds later, once the speed of 264 km/h was reached, the left engine was voluntarily shut down. At this time, the crew was unable to feather the propeller that went into auto-rotation. The airplane banked left to a 70-80° angle then dove into the ground and crashed in a field located 1,850 meters past the runway end. The aircraft was totally destroyed and all seven crew members were killed.

Antonov AN-10

The crew was engaged in a local test flight on this AN-10 prototype. Shortly after takeoff from Voronezh Airport, while climbing to a height of 500 meters, the engine number one failed. The power of the engine number four was immediately pull back to 40% of its nominal value to avoid any asymmetrical thrust. Few seconds later, the engine number three failed, so the same procedure was performed with the engine number two. Unable to maintain a safe altitude, the captain decided to attempt an emergency landing when the airplane struck the bank of a river and crashed. The mechanic was killed while four other crew members were injured, two of them seriously.