Aeroflot Flight 065

Aeroflot Flight 065 was a scheduled passenger flight operated by the International Civil Aviation Directorate division of Aeroflot. On 17 February 1966 at 1:38 am local time a Tupolev Tu-114 crashed during take-off from Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow, killing 21 of the 47 passengers and 19 crew members on board. This was the only fatal incident involving a Tu-114. A committee investigating the accident found that the crash was due to multiple crew and ATC failures.

Accident
On 16 February at 11:35 pm the crew of flight 065 were preparing for departure and received a weather report of visibility 700 m, with mist, light snow and a relative humidity of 100 percent. Recent snow had been cleared from the runway but not from its full 60 m width. A strip approximately 40 m wide had been plowed down the center of the concrete runway leaving snow 50-70 cm deep along the runway edges.

The visibility minimum for takeoff of a TU-114 was 1000 m. At 1:37 am the aircraft crew radioed the control tower requesting the actual visibility and the controller reported 1100 m. The controller later testified that he counted the runway edge lights he could see looking down the runway. He believed the distance between these lights to be 100 m when in fact it was 50 m.

At 1:38 am the aircraft began its take-off roll one degree to the right of the runway center line. Approximately 30 seconds later the aircraft was 1050 m down the runway when the crew realized they were approaching the plowed snow on the right edge and overcorrected to the left four degrees. When the aircraft reached 255-260 km/h, 1400 m down the runway the pilot rotated the nose wheels off the ground. At a distance of 1850 m from the beginning of the runway, accelerating through 275 km/h, the left main landing gear entered the 60 cm deep snow, causing the aircraft to yaw left and pitch down. The left main gear then impacted a runway edge light. Instead of aborting the take-off the pilot banked right, striking the propellers of engines 3 and 4 on the runway. The aircraft then spun to the right, flipped over and burst into flames. The forward fuselage and main wing section were completely destroyed. The force of the impact tore away the tail section and it came to rest inverted separated from the burning forward section. Many of the survivors were seated in this part of the aircraft.

Aircraft
The accident aircraft was a Tupolev Tu-114 with aircraft registration CCCP-76491 and manufacturer's serial number 64M472. The airliner was manufactured in 1964, delivered to Aeroflot on 12 December of that year and entered service on 18 November 1965; it was the last Tu-114 produced.

At the time of the accident, it had accumulated 93 hours with 19 take-off/landing cycles, and flown approximately 6960 km.

Investigation
In a report released 12 May 1966 the investigating board indicated the main causes of the crash were errors made by the aircraft crew and poor organization of the airport traffic control service. Contributing factors included limited visibility in poor weather conditions and failure to properly clear the runway of snow.