Russians Silent On Airliner Crash

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32078, 28 August 1969, Page 17

Russians Silent On Airliner Crash

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

MOSCOW, August 27.

Airport officials in Moscow today maintained a total black-out on the crash of a big Soviet airliner packed with holiday-makers, which apparently burst into flames while coming in for an emergency landing.

But unofficial accounts pieced together from various sources at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport said that there were dead and injured among the 112 people reported aboard the burned-out plane, which was on a flight from the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Just before the crash late last night a fleet of about 30 ambulances and also several fire engines were seen speeding to the airport, about 15 miles south of Moscow. A spokesman for Intourist, the Soviet travel agency, said “a plane is circling overhead" and another airport official later told N.Z.P.A.-

; Reuter: “A plane caught fire. . It is all over now. Go away.” The plane was believed to ' be a turbo-prop Ilyushin 18 : belonging to the Soviet air- > line, Aeroflot. But this could . not be confirmed, and by the ; time Western reporters get 1 to Vnukovo, one hour after ; the crash, everything ap- . peared normal. An airport porter said tiie ' plane burst into flames just before touch-down arid added: “There were victims • of course.” From the various accounts, 1 Western reporters pieced to- : gether the following picture ' of the crash:— , The pilot, noticing a fault which made a normal landing impossible, radioed the control tower. He was told to circle the airport while ambulances and fire engines raced to the scene from Moscow. On landing, or just before, the plane caught fire. The fire engines quickly doused the flames while those passengers that , could, escaped from the blaze. Few of the hundreds of travellers waiting at Vnukovo to catch their flights seemed

aware of the accident or even to be interested. The only untoward activity was ambulances speeding to and fro on the tarmac. The official silence on the accident was usual, for rarely are details of such disasters disclosed. The last officially confirmed air crash in the Soviet Union was late in 1967, when a passenger plane crashed near Sverdlovsk in the Urals. Casualty figures were never given, but unofficial reports said that more than 100 people died. The last known air crash in Moscow was on February 17, 1966, when a Tu-114 airliner crashed at Sheremtyevo International Airport seconds after taking off on an inaugural flight to Brazzaville. The official death toll was eight.