​​"Mandarin Flight": Crash Near Kyiv

A remarkably absurd reason led to the crash of an aircraft. Thankfully, this time, no one was injured (except for the mandarins).

On December 12, 1990, an Antonov An-12B was performing a flight from Batumi to Kyiv. On board were five crew members and twelve passengers. Also loaded into the cargo hold were 12 tons of mandarins, in anticipation of the New Year holidays.

While approaching Kyiv, the crew received a report of light icing in the clouds. During descent, the first officer decided to activate the wing anti-icing system. On the panel, next to the anti-icing switches, were the fuel shutoff levers, which are used to stop fuel supply to the engines. The first officer mistook the shutoff levers for the anti-icing switches and was surprised to see that they were in the ON position, yet the green indicator lights were not illuminated. Assuming a system malfunction, he resorted to a tried-and-true method: he turned off all the switches in order to turn them back on again.

At that moment, the attention of the entire crew was drawn to the sudden change in engine noise - then the engines simply shut down. The unfeathered propellers entered autorotation, creating significant aerodynamic drag. As a result, the airspeed dropped from 450 to 370 km/h, and the rate of descent increased to 15 m/s. The far-left propeller was manually feathered immediately, while the others were feathered automatically by the system.

The crew couldn’t understand what had happened. They attempted to restart two engines, but due to the fuel shutoff levers being closed, the engines failed to start. To conserve battery power, the captain ordered all anti-icing systems to be switched off. The first officer turned off the heating for the external guide vanes, propellers, and spinners, as well as the engine bleed air, but forgot to turn off the tailplane de-icing system. Another engine start attempt was made but was unsuccessful.

Only at 1,800 meters altitude the flight engineer noticed that the fuel shutoff levers were closed. However, by then the battery charge was insufficient to restart the engines. Ten kilometers remained to the airport. Due to low cloud cover and the onboard radionavigation equipment being inoperative from lack of power, it became clear to everyone that a landing at the airport was no longer possible. The captain increased the rate of descent to build up speed for maneuvering once they broke out below the clouds.

At 120 meters, the pilots spotted the ground and the outline of a field. Visibility was poor, and they couldn’t assess the field’s surface, but the captain made the decision to land there.

With landing gear extended and flaps retracted, the aircraft touched down, rolled about 150 meters, then struck a small hillock with its engine, which detached along with part of the left wing. After that, still moving at 140 km/h, the aircraft passed under power lines and over a deep ditch. Ultimately, the An-12 struck a road embankment with the center section of the fuselage, which caused it to break in two. No fire broke out.

Fourteen people on board were injured, but no one was killed. The condition of the mandarins is only known insofar as they were scattered across the field. The primary cause of the incident was determined to be crew error.