The Soviet Union's Deadliest Crash: The Tu-154 Crash at Uchquduq 

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It's interesting that the deadliest air disaster in Soviet history happened in the deadliest moment in world aviation history. The summer of 1985 was the deadliest, with Air India 182, Delta 191, JAL 123, and British Airtours 28M. Aeroflot 5163 slots into this summer, only making it more deadly.

Two minutes and 33 seconds is a very long time to contemplate every decision you've made in your life that brought you to this moment.

Just thinking how slow my thinking is when I’m seriously sleep deprived, it’s scary to imagine being awoken in a Soviet cockpit and immediately confronted with a problem that endangers the lives of hundreds of people. Even if the pilots could determine the correct solution to the stall, given their muddled and sluggish thinking, it may still have been too late to save the flight

Ive worked 24, 48, even 96 hours straight as an EMT. Its not safe. We have a system called "safety pauses" where if we feel tired, no matter what, we have to be sent back to our station and left alone for an uninterrupted 2 hour rest. Even still, work culture here pressures us not to use them

Flew on one of those TU154 once, when we decended in rally hot and humid weather and the cabin filled with dence mist as well as screaming passengers that thought the was a fire..

An all-too-common feature of the Soviet experience was the quiet suffering of individual families who knew only that their family was gone and would never be told how or why. For many decades, Soviet families would lose loved ones in obscure military operations, industrial accidents, and the like, and the most the state would tell them was that their loved one was dead and there might be a body to bury; lucky families might even have an approximate date of death. Many a Soviet graveyard was filled with young men (and some women) who clearly died before their time, but the sum-total of public disclosure on their death was they were dead.

Love the song. Hate the disaster. The video of the smiling children on their parents’ laps was chilling.

...a blown fuse. Think about that. A blown fuse with NO redundancy for an instrument was the final nail in the coffin for these people's lives.

I thought that compression stalls and death by flat spins only happened likeable supporting characters in 1980s US Naval Aviation recruitment films.

Fatigue is the single biggest factor in aviation accidents. Almost every deadly incident involves tired flight crews.

There was a cargo 747 (MK Airlines) crash later on that was somewhat similar. There the direct cause was the crew not using enough power on takeoff (so the plane failed to clear an obstacle and crashed) but they also had been awake much longer than they should've been.

Really enjoy your content, I know how hard it is to get this stuff done

From Colombia Bogota, thank you for those videos about the USSR, I’m to young to even existed when it fell but learning from their story is very interesting. You are a treasure

Man you are uploading like crazy recently! Make sure you get some sleep

"Is this new airplane ready for production?" "I don't care, we just need to impress someone with something for some reason"

Whenever I have to do risk assessment or compliance review, I almost always encounter pushback in the form of "we're not going over the limits, just get close to them". And I have to again and again warn people of a "cockup cascade" - a situation in which a series of small and negligible issues or errors lead ro absolute disaster because nobody has the room for error on anything as every limit is pushed.

In a way, it's kind of heartening to know that fashion in the early 80s was just as unflattering to people inside the Iron Curtin as it was to people outside.

This air disaster is almost unbearable!! Could it be that darkness played a role? In the daytime, it t would seem the pilots would understand the pitch if the aircraft better because of visual inputs. In the dark over a desert, it had to be completely pitch black!! RIP 😢

Велика подяка за цікаве відео! Радий,що Ви повернулись на ютуб із своїми роботами;)

Increasing thrust is NOT the primary reaponse to a stall (exceeding the wing's critical Angle of Atack). It is to reduce the angle of attack immediately, by either relaxing control colomn pressure or pushing forwards.

Much awaited, much appreciated looking forward to excellent insights as always from you.

That opening was well made and written. Plus now I have a new song in my head :)

I love how you always bring in something that's mostly unrelated to the event but you always connect it

Excellent introduction and great video about a very tragic event.

I don't want to idealize nor trivialize the issues plagueing the USSR, but 200 dead as the deadliest air disaster is actually pretty low. The Tenerife collision in 1977 between KLM and PanAm cost almost 600 lives alone, that being the biggest loss of life in an aviation accident before 9/11. What makes this one stand out though, is that it doesn't feel like anything would change as a result, nothing was learned if they hide the truth. Usually new technologies or rules are implemented to avoid a repeat, but if they just gloss over the disastrous conditions for pilots they are just asking for the same thing to happen again.

This channel is 10 times better just because of the first hand information and anecdotes from people who actually lived under the soviet regime! Love your work keep it up!

Every video you do makes me question how the Soviet Union lasted as long as it did. Seems like a slight breeze should have made everything collapse.

I recall reading an article about the Gloster Javelin, many moons ago, about the investigation into "Super Stalls" or "Deep Stalls" associated with T-tail jet aircraft. This lead to the introduction of a "stick pusher" system presumably the Tu-154 was not so equipped?

Best deconstruction of this terrible crash I've seen so far, explained in plain language without going into dull technical details. Graphics are interesting, and context of overall life in USSR at that time helps a lot. Good work! 👍

"Did you fall asleep, or did you pass out?" -Billy Madison

Paper Skies’ videos are brilliant. I hadn’t heard of this accident and it would be good to find more like this. I’ll definitely think about subscribing to Nebula.

This was the best intro I've ever seen on this channel, keep it up!

This channel never fails to impress with the quality of the videos. A very sad and needless air disaster. I always think of the Soviet Union as something like the pictures of food on the walls of the cheap restaurant looking so much nicer than what is actually delivered, and those who long for its return definitely look back through rose-coloured glasses.

Strikes on youtube are becoming more and more an issue for us... BTW I really enjoy your videos, keep up the good work!

I'm still a BIG fan of the animation for this channel and long may it continue.

Hello, I truly appreciate your uniquely useful videos of the past. I'm an aerospace engineer (AE) and I watch your videos with great interest in learning about things that happened in the past and especially what went wrong. Now, in this particular video, at 3:42 you talk about exceeding the critical AoA and you've said it was 20 degrees! Was this an angle given in units in the cockpit or the real angle of attack of the wing? Unless you know it, the angle of attack indicated onboard is the actual angle of the AoA vane relative to wing's mean aerodynamic chord and because the airflow will always go from high to low pressures, it will curve towards the low pressure, which usually is the top of the fuselage. Due to this effect, the vane will always deflect more than for an undisturbed airflow, thus showing a higher angle than the real wanted/needed reference. For this instance, all prototype aircraft and test aircraft have the AoA vane mounted on a boom ahead of the plane so that the fuselage's upward (at positive lift) circulation of the airflow won't deflect it more than wanted. Due to, let's call them laziness reasons, almost all aircraft manufacturers engineers don't bother to correct the AoA vane angle shown in cockpit with the real AoA that the plane has relative to an undisturbed airflow ahead of the plane and this is why the MIG-21 has a caution AoA of 28 and critical value of 33, when instead of 33 degrees which the vane is deflected to by the upward flowing airflow, the aircraft's wings have just 20..21 degrees of real AoA. So, coming back to the subject of this wonderful airplane (I truly like it), the Tu-154, I wouldn't wonder if the AoA indication in cockpit (if the plane has it) would show the actual vane angle which is always greater than that of the clean/undisturbed airflow. So, I just ask..., can you please confirm that the plane had a cockpit indication of 20 degrees AoA? From my experience, these kind of wings usually have a critical AoA no higher than 15..16 degrees at low subsonic speeds, around the takeoff and approach speeds, while at higher altitudes, higher Mach number and lower Reynolds number the critical AoA can decay by some degrees. Having 20 degrees of real AoA in such conditions is of real interest for me to learn about and I would appreciate if you'd give me a link or some clue regarding the data retrieved after the crash. Kind regards!

I love the the old aft fuselage-engined, T-tails! Specifically the larger jetliners, not the current regional jets mind you. Most of them were trijets, many others twinjets, and some of them were even quadjets. The '𝐓𝐮𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐯 𝐓𝐮-𝟏𝟓𝟒' wasn’t as sleek, or have as much the elegant lines of, say the '𝐁𝐨𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝟕𝟐𝟕', or '𝐕𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐕𝐂-𝟏𝟎', but it’s still very pleasant to look at. My favorite Soviet T-tails though, are the '𝐈𝐥𝐲𝐮𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧 𝐈𝐥-𝟔𝟐', and the straight-winged '𝐘𝐚𝐤𝐨𝐯𝐥𝐞𝐯 𝐘𝐚𝐤-𝟒𝟎'. And one unique element of Soviet produced aircraft that I find particularly enjoyable, is that the designers didn’t seem to be hampered by, or concerned with jet engine noise levels. At least from all the aviation RU-vid content I consume, the Soviet jetliner’s whirling screeches seem to be a notch above the more subdued sound of their Western counterparts; especially upon engine spool-up and takeoff run. I miss the jet engines that sounded like rocket ships. Where trips to the airport had you not just hearing the takeoffs, but feeling them all the way down into your bones. Those “blast offs” used to raise the hair on my arms, and give me goosebumps all over.

listening to Paper Skies' intro gave reminded me of Air France 447, with the flight crew misinterpreting the stall warnings.

Damn you @PaperSkiesAviation! This song has buried itself deep into my brain and I can't stop whistling it!

That Yalla song was really good.

1:42 Has to be one of the best/saddest intros to a video I’ve seen

A very sad crash I remember is of Aeroflot Flight 411. Are you able to do a video on this? I remember seeing some very old obscure pics of the crash site many years later. I believe the vast majority of family members affected by that crash never saw the site where their relatives died. Very sad.

As I recall Uchkuduk air crash weren't only sole flat spin and crash with tu154. In 2006 was a similar crash in Donetsk region when bellend captain climbed too high and then stalled the plain

You always say "in the USSR" but we must not forget these things can happen everywhere, by pretending its just somthing that happens only to them might allow us to start thinking it could never happen to us and therefor lead to a lack of care. Besides, dont worry, if the USSR came back it would only be in name, theres no way current leaders like the idea of going back to such a vindictive world where even fallen leaders like Khrushchev could be disowned and stepped on- no, its more likely going to be a thing where the leaders get some more power but becomes a kind of Russian China kind of thing not that im saying that would be good, im just saying it wouldent be "The Soviet Union" ;P

Yalla are now my favourite band.

New paper skies! Makes my day every time!

Wow! Fascinating! And absolutely frightening! Great production! Thank you. 😮

sounds to me like they didnt fall asleep

T-tail jets like this are extremely vulnerable to the "deep stall," followed by an unrecoverable flat spin. A high enough AOA at *any* speed can put the horizontal stabilizer in turbulent air created by the wings, rendering the stabilizer ineffective for pitch control. When a T-tail stalls, the crew has just a few seconds of usable control to recover to normal flight.

I’ve been saying this for years. Russian aviation is more of a threat to humanity than any weapon in its arsenal.

Excellent work as always!

Sleep deprived and very likely overheated, it was only a matter of when not if they would make serious lapses in attention and judgment.

Paper skies is the channel I watch wind I need to stay up, it’s like audio coffee

Did they ever fix the flight and duty time regs in Russia? I have seen the flight and duty time regs updated twice in my 47 years of flying professionally. Short-term and long-term fatigue is an on going problem. The FAA is looking at how people actually sleep and what rest is and is not.

Happy to see so many new videos! Just hope you’re not burning yourself out! Take care ❤

Oh wow great channel. So glad I found this.

How do pilots not know the first most basic lesson that "speed slower than that plane model needs" and "trying to fight descent by pulling up" equals "stall"??? Even before stall indicators existed it was the most basic thing to learn. "Why can't I keep it up?" And "oh look how slow I'm going" equals "it's only going fast enough to glide, dumbass, not fast enough to stay level. You can either stop resisting the descent and instead accept it and aim the nose down or you can add more speed, but you have to do at least one of these things. You can't keep going like this." That should be so drilled into instinct that even a sleepy pilot just does it as a first instinct and then starts looking for a cause after the stall is averted.

Life in the Soviet Union must have been even bleaker than I imagined if *that* song became a hit...

Brilliant introduction, highlighting the depth of your research into these episodes.

A shocking parallel with AF447. Different preconditions, similar outcome

The most incredible thing about this video is that Vasily Ershov survived 20000 hours flying a Tu-154

Hope someday you'll cover the Soviet and American experiments into nuclear powered aircraft, which led to the Americans saying, "nope, not safe" and the Soviets building a nuclear powered Bear.

Excellent pictures, never seen before

The band was surprisingly good. I would say this song is probably in the top 40 songs about being in the desert. The airplane crash was a horrible tragedy, poor children! It is inconceivable that there was a proper reason to fly the jet airliner below 300 km/h (160 knots) at that point in the flight. Jet airliners, being quite heavy, especially this one, needs to fly quite fast at higher altitude to generate the necessary lift to stay up in the air, usually well over 320 km/h. Most jet airliners fly, upon reaching top altitude, fly at between 880-920 km/h.

Awesome CGI work. I love the looks of this bird and the way it’s main gear rotates 180deg into the pods. Nice vid!

Damn the Cutting in this Video was IMPECCABLE

Folks, flight and duty time regulations in the United States are WOEFULLY inadequate! Did you know that a flight crewmember can be required to be at work on duty for 16 hours? Yes, the pilot who flies you into Boston during a "Nor'easter" can have been at work since 8 AM and it is now midnight. And he is trying to land you and your CHILDREN safely during those winds and low clouds and visibility? And 16 hours doesn't count the time it takes him to wake up, drink coffee, take a shower, put on his uniform, and show up for the van ride to the airport. That man may have been up since 6:30 in the morning. And did you know that the Federal Aviation Regulations state that he only has to have 8 hours off of duty. Not 8 hours in the hotel, just 8 hours off. Which means that if it took 30 minutes to get to the hotel after his previous duty period [not unusual....] and 30 minutes to take his uniform off, call home, and get to bed, then if he has to show up at the other end on time and needs at least 30 minutes to get going, then he has AT BEST 6:30 in the sack before that 16 hour day in which he is supposed to land you (and your kids...) safely at Boston. In a gale, in icing conditions.... Those are the Federal Aviation Regulations that pertain to CFR Part 121 flying, or airlines. Look it up if you don't believe me. However, there is a caveat; Most airline pilots work under a ~~~ COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT ~~~ That prevents airlines from abusing pilots and thus SAFETY this way! Story: In 1999, I was a pilot for a non union cargo airline out of Dallas that shall remain nameless [Express One International]. I was in Indianapolis and went on airport reserve at 6 PM. I had gotten out of bed in my nasty crashpad around 8 AM and went running. Well, about 8 PM they sent me to fly to Philadelphia, then to Pittsburg, and then back to Indy. We got back around 11 PM and I figured we were done, since our reserve period ended at midnight. I was tired, but not too bad. I was planning to go back to the crashpad, take a shower, and read my book before going to bed. WRONG. They sent me to Dallas to ferry a 727 right at midnight....But we had a maintenance issue. We finally left and got into DF Dubya around 6 AM. I was dead tired! Inflight used the knob on the autopilot to turn the 727 towards the final approach course [localizer] and literally fell asleep with the knob in my hand! I startled awake and joined the ILS and landed safely. We went to the hotel in Dallas [A Red Roof Inn, the height of luxury...] and I was just pulling the sheets back naked when the phone rings, this was before I had a cellphone. It's scheduling, and guess what? They want us back at the airport ASAP to ferry a broken 727 back to Indianapolis for maintenance.... "It's legal" the scheduler said into the phone. YES, she was correct....That would have been legal. As captain, you are responsible for the safe transport of the aircraft. I could not in any way, shape, or form allow myself to be part of any aircrew at that point. I was simply too tired. So I used the "F" word: I officially called "fatigued". Which means that not only did I have to fill out paperwork, but so did the company, since the FAA requires the airlines to report these occurrences. Did I hear anything? No. Did the FAA do anything at all about it? NO! Folks, that right there is where a union collective bargaining agreement makes TONS of sense! Most airlines have union contracts that keep pilots and flight attendants from being abused by the FAR's. These contracts keep all of us safe, and are what stands between our modern airline system and the episode in this video, where an airliner spins into the ground because the crew fell asleep at the wheel~ GREAT video!

I am impressed with the video. Authentic Soviet video.

In what world is a 20 degree angle of attack "normal" to any pilot? It seems simple.... if your aircraft is shaking (buffeting) and your AoA is 20 degrees, YOU ARE ABOUT TO ENTER A STALL, IF NOT ALREADY IN A STALL.

I have to admit to falling asleep in the cockpit myself. We had the aircraft on autopilot on a long, 2 leg coast to coast flight in an A-6 Intruder. My BN could fall asleep at the drop of a hat and had a habit of falling asleep with his head pressed against the cushion of the radar boot. I did not like to fly on autopilot because the flight just got boring but we were both kind of tired after a week long, very intensive workup period so I had it on. I dozed off for about 20 minutes. When I woke up we were still on course and altitude but missed the radio call from ATC to switch freq's to the next "center". It was kind of embarrassing so we went to Guard (universal frequency) and asked for a radio check. I believe it was St. Louis center that called up and gave us their freq.

Wow, you have to be a real genius to put a commercial aircraft into a flat spin. I am sorry for the pax and their families.

These stories are actually so inmersive

I recognize some footage fragments from Soviet film "Ekipazh" ("Air crew"). When I watched this movie in the 80's as a kid, I was terrified. Today practical effects in disaster part of the movie are funny, but it still is somewhat unnerving.

Sad is, that still pilots almost all over the world got the same fatigue... Time for rest is counted only to be ok on papers...

- Тормоза! - Не тормозимся! - Тормоза! - Не тормозимся, юз! - Переложить реверс! - Хвост оторвёт! - Выполнять!!!

They hade this problem with soviet tanks, like the t-34. The ergonomics and comfort was so bad that the crew got really exhausted pretty fast.

Man, the conclusion of this video is so important, what a genius way to bring the story full circle! Those nostalgia comments on old Soviet videos always make me facepalm

Smoothest aeroflot flight

This has got to be my favorite channel on RU-vid!

Aeroflot and crashes go together like hotdogs and ketchup!

I learned about this and immediately thought of: “Why worry about something that isn’t going to happen” -Charkov, KGB First Deputy Chairman Chernobyl (2019)

I hate it when I'm on a long drive on the highway and I feel like I'm starting to nod-off, since I have to battle to stay awake long enough to exit, find somewhere to park, try to catch a few ZZZs, can't fall asleep, resume driving.... only to repeat all over again 10 minutes later. Imagine that feeling when you're the one(s) in control of an airplane with hundreds onboard.

It's sad that totally incompetent crews are allowed to fly.

Perfect video to watch while waiting for your flight

It's hard to imagine that everyone fell asleep.

Didn't know about this crash before. Thanks for all those informations. The animation also are really great, good job 👍🏿

From Uzbekistan i like your vedios

Great video as always. So, I understand that not only both pilots were sleeping, it appears that the Flight Engineer and Navigator fell asleep too?! Spokonoe Notche! 😨

Отличный документальный фильм. Спасибо.

What a tragedy poor people had no idea they were about to get killed .. lord have mercy up on them. Just tragic

This video is not assuring when the next day I’m taking a flight from Beijing to Moscow on Aeroflot😂

The book "Uncovering Soviet Disasters - Exploring the Limits of Glasnost" by James Oberg is quite an interesting read that ties in so well with the content of this channel.

Even though I love your videos on the Soviet Union, It would be nice if you also make videos on interesting stories of other militaries.

That song is amazing

great video, love the narration and editing 👍🏻

I’ve always wondered why Air Crash Investigation haven’t done this on an episode.

Обожнюю твої відео

Ту154 , літак який я дуже чудово знав ! За час навчання , ми , майбутні , бортінженери - досить чудово знали конструкцію і можливі відмови в польоті . 😉 Треба додати , що в нас були чудові інструктори з досвідом польотів , які весь час крім стандартних відмов , вводили щось нове. Наприклад, спочатку відмову одного двигуна на різних єтапах , іноді пожежа двигуна 🔥, а потім , відмова єлектрики, далі вимикання ще 2х двигунів , і далі зниження , запуск ВСУ, на 3000метрів, включення електрики , запуск двигунів по черзі ,потім відмови гідравлики, і посадки в різних конфігураціях , тощо ! 👀

Soviet inhumanity didn't just stop after 1991. Look what they are doing to Ukraine.