Amderma - Amderma

On September 16, 1948 at 07:17 PM, Amderma - Amderma experienced a crash involving Lisunov LI-2, operated by Polyarnaya Aviatsiya, with the event recorded near Barents Sea All Russia.

The flight was categorized as survey / patrol / reconnaissance and the reported phase was flight at a lake, sea, ocean, river crash site.

7 people were known to be on board, 7 fatalities were recorded, 0 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 100.0%.

Crew on board: 7, crew fatalities: 7, passengers on board: 0, passenger fatalities: 0, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is weather. The crew was engaged in a reconnaissance mission in the region of the Franz Josef archipelago. While returning to Amderma, the crew encountered poor weather conditions with strong headwind, fog and low visibility. In such conditions, the crew lost his orientation and deviated from the prescribed flight path to the west by 210 km. As fuel seemed to be insufficient to reach Amderma under these conditions, the captain decided to divert to Novaya Zemlya, but failed to regain orientation and missed Novaya Zemlya while flying through the Kara Straits. After being in the air for 15 hours and 12 minutes, the aircraft ran out of fuel. The crew prepared for a ditching in high seas in the Barents Sea between Varandei island, Matveyev Island and Cape Medynski Zavorot by night. An empty dinghy was found few days later but no trace of the seven crew members nor the aircraft that was lost. It was determined that the crew was able to evacuate the cabin but probably did not survive to the extreme outside conditions. Investigators did not understand why the operator and the pilots decided to perform such mission in such conditions with this type of aircraft that was not suitable for this.

Aircraft reference details include registration CCCP-N464, MSN 184 282 01, year of manufacture 1947.