​​Two captains and An-124 crash in Italy

On October 8, 1996, the Antonov An-124-100 transport aircraft of Aeroflot Airlines was performing a commercial cargo flight Moscow (Russia) - Turin (Italy) - Bandar Seri Begawan (Brunei). There were 23 crew members on board. There were two captains in the cockpit, one of whom (the captain of the alternate crew) was acting as the first officer. The first part of the route (Moscow-Turin) was a night flight without loading. Then, in Turin, several "Ferrari" cars were supposed to be loaded, which were the commercial cargo for the flight to Brunei.

At 10:25, the plane began its descent to Turin. At this time, repair work was being carried out on the runway. The length of Turin airport's runway was reduced from 3300 to 2350 meters (the threshold was moved by 950 meters). However, the crew had been previously informed of the runway's shortening by 1300 meters. Due to the repair works, the instrument landing system was only operating in the beacon mode. The weather conditions were poor but above the airport's minimums. The visibility on the runway was 1500 meters in light rain and low cloud cover. Upon emerging from the clouds, the aircraft found itself further than expected from the runway threshold, and the altitude was also higher than calculated.

Believing that there wouldn't be enough runway left for a safe landing, the first officer insisted on going around for another approach, while the pilot-in-command decided to land. The aircraft descended over the runway with reduced engine power to a minimum. However, the first officer managed to persuade the pilot-in-command to go around. At that moment, there was less than a meter between the runway surface and the wheels of the landing gear. The captain initiated a go-around and attempted to increase engine power for takeoff. However, due to design flaws in the engine control system and errors by the captain in the procedure, only one of the four engines went into takeoff mode. Pilots repeated the engine control sequence three times, but all efforts were unsuccessful.

As a result, the aircraft couldn't gain altitude. Approximately one kilometer from the runway at an altitude of 25 meters, the An-124 struck trees. Then it collided with the roof of a two-story building in the town of San Francesco al Campo, crashed to the ground, where it collided nose-first with a farm building and caught fire. Two of the 23 crew members died - the captain and the alternate crew pilot. Thirteen other crew members sustained injuries of varying severity. Additionally, on the ground, two people died, and two others were injured, with one of them later dying in the hospital.

According to the findings of the crash investigation commission, among the causes of the tragedy were insufficient training and poor crew coordination. Secondly, there was poor planning for the approach, delay in deciding to go around, and the captain's indecision. Also, design flaws in the engine control system played a fatal role.