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Aviation accident

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Aeroflot Flight 663
Accident
An Aeroflot Il-14, similar to the one involved in the accident
Date	24 August 1963
Summary	Collision with a mountain after deviating due to adverse weather conditions
Site	7 km S Gegechkori, 32 km NW Kutaisi airport (GSSR, the USSR 42°28′N 42°24′E / 42.467°N 42.400°E / 42.467; 42.400
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Avia 14P
Operator	Aeroflot
Registration	СССР-61617
Flight origin	Tbilisi International Airport, Tbilisi, (GSSR)
1st stopover	Kopitnari Airport, Kutaisi, (GSSR)
Last stopover	Sukhumi Babushara Airport, Sukhumi and AbASSR, GSSR
Destination	Krasnodar International Airport, Krasnodar, (RSFSR)
Occupants	32
Passengers	27
Crew	5
Fatalities	32
Survivors	0

Aeroflot Flight 663 was a Soviet passenger flight from Tbilisi International Airport to Krasnodar International Airport that crashed on 24 August 1963, in the Kutaisi region. The crash involved an Aeroflot Avia 14. All 27 passengers and 5 crew on board were killed.

Aircraft

The aircraft had a serial number of 602107 and was released by Avia (Prague) on February 23, 1957. The passenger capacity of the cabin was 18 seats, although the aircraft was technically a cargo plane. The airliner was sold to the Soviet Union's Head Department of the Civil Air Fleet, where it received the registration number СССР-L1617 and was sent to the Tbilisi Joint Aviation Division of the Georgian Territorial Administration of the Civil Air Fleet. In 1959, a re-registration was carried out, which changed the registration to CCCP-61617. According to one source, the airliner was converted into an Avia 14M (Il-14M) model at an unknown date. The total operating time of the aircraft was 11,682 hours.

Crew

Pilot-in-Command — Archil Alekseevich Heteshvili
Co-pilot — Georgy Bely
Flight engineer — Mikhail Zakharovich Suprunov
Radio operator — Grigory Ovanesovich Akopyants

Accident

Aeroflot Flight 663 was a passenger flight from Tbilisi International Airport to Krasnodar International Airport. At 10:08, the flight landed at Kutaisi International Airport, its first stop. At 10:45, the flight departed from Kutaisi, and after 3–4 minutes, an altitude of 600 meters was reported. In response, the dispatcher instructed to follow the main route at an altitude of 1,500 meters, while monitoring the weather conditions. At 10:52 the aircraft was reported to continue to Sukhumi at an altitude of 1,500 meters. The flight took place between cloud layers in conditions of heavy precipitation, but the ground was still visible. After that, the crew did not contact or answer calls.

After departing from Kutaisi, Flight 663 began to deviate to the right of the route. In the Khoni area, the crew unexpectedly encountered a severe thunderstorm, with the lower cloud limit being 300–400 meters, and the visibility not exceeding 3 kilometers. Despite bad weather, Heteshvili decided not to return to the airport or follow the roundabout through Poti, but instead try to bypass the thunderstorm on the right side of the mountains. Bypassing to the right, the plane was flying at an altitude of 900 meters when it hit a zone with heavy rain, which the radio operator reported to the ground at 10:52. At 10:53, the flight, 32 kilometers north-west of Kutaisi airport and 7 kilometers north of Gegechkori, crashed into the mountainside at 900 meters. The aircraft was completely destroyed and caught fire. All 32 people on board were killed.

The total on board should have been 5 crew members and 24 passengers. But while studying the wreckage, three stowaway passengers were also found.

Cause

According to the weather forecast, a thunderstorm was expected on the main flight route, with stratocumulus and cumulonimbus clouds having a lower limit of 600–1000 meters and a horizontal visibility of 4–10 kilometers. The pilot knew that there was a thunderstorm on the main route from Kutaisi to Sukhumi, while on the roundabout (via Poti) weather conditions were good. A flight that left Kutaisi earlier determined that the main route to Sukhumi was impossible, therefore, requested permission to follow the detour route. However, the crew of Flight 663 did not receive this information before departure. This was probably caused by the fatigue of the pilot, who, at the request of the deputy chief of the airport, was delayed from the night shift and had been working for around 14 hours. At 10:38, the control tower was informed that cloud cover had dropped from 1100 to 450 meters, however, this information was not communicated to the crew of Flight 663 either. When the crew tried to circumvent the thunderstorm in the conditions of limited visibility, they did not notice that they were right on the mountains. The lack of visibility and communication resulted in the aircraft colliding with the mountain.

According to the commission, the cause factors were:

The air traffic controllers allowed a visual flight at an altitude of 1500 meters in a mountainous area without meteorological conditions.
The air traffic controllers at Kutaisi airport did not prohibit the departure and did not warn the crew about the clouds, instead giving instructions to fly at an altitude of 1500 meters, an altitude dangerous during the weather conditions.
The pilot performed a visual flight, although in these weather conditions it was impossible, while below the safe altitude.
The deputy head of Kutaisi airport allowed the PM of the day shift to be two hours late for work, but when the day shift entered, he did not personally replace him, and therefore the RP of the night shift was forced to stay at work. In turn, the request for an RP of a day shift was delayed not by two, but by four hours, which further increased the working hours of the RP of a night shift.

References

^ "203 Avia-14 built by Avia at Prague-Letnany from 1956 to 1960" (PDF). Old Wings – A Classic Aviation Website. p. 37.
"Ильюшин Авиа-14(П) CCCP-61617 а/к Аэрофлот - МГА СССР - карточка борта" (in Russian). russianplanes.net. Retrieved 2014-08-03.
^ "Катастрофа Ил-14П Грузинского управления ГВФ близ Кутаиси (борт СССР-61617), 24 августа 1963 года" (in Russian). AirDisaster.ru. Retrieved 2014-08-03.

Aeroflot

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Subsidiaries

Active	Pobeda Rossiya
Inactive	Dobrolet Donavia Orenair SAT Airlines Vladivostok Air
Exited	Aurora Nordavia (now Smartavia)

Fleet

Accidents and
incidents

1940s	G-2 Alma-Ata crash ANT-20bis crash CCCP-Л1450 crash Flight 17
1950s	Il-12 Karaganda crash Il-12 Novosibirsk crash Kemerovo mid-air collision Flight 229 Flight 783 Flight 10 Flight 136 Flight 214 Flight 229 Kiev mid-air collision Flight 11 Flight 10 Flight 105 Flight 04 Flight 365 Flight 164 Il-12 Lazo crash Тu-104 Kanash crash Flight 200 Flight 315
1960s	Flight 315 Flight 207 Flight 036 Flight 068 Flight 245 Flight 902 Flight 415 Flight 03 Flight 213 Flight 191 Flight 25 Flight 012 Flight 366 Flight 663 Flight 721 Flight 101/X-20 Flight 542 Flight 513 Flight 99 Flight 065 Flight 2723 Flight 5003 Flight 2230 Flight L-51 Flight 1668 Flight 15 Flight 831 Flight F-28 Flight N-826
1970s	Flight U-45 Flight 1661 Flight 3630 CCCP-11000 crash CCCP-12996 crash Flight 1969 Flight 1912 Flight 773 Flight N-63 Flight 2174 Flight 1491 Flight 558 Flight 1036 Flight 217 Flight 6263 Flight 141 Flight 630 Flight X-167 Flight 6551 Flight 109 Flight A-13 Flight 3932 Flight 964 Flight 19 Flight 2022 Flight 2420 CCCP-75559 crash Flight 662 Flight E-15 Flight A-53 Flight 2003 Flight 3739 Flight 909 Flight 1802 Flight 418 Flights 7957 and 31 Flight 2415 Flight N-36 Flight 3843 Flight 5003 Flight 331 Flight B-2 Flight 6709 Flight 1080 Flight 6515 Flight 1691 Flights 7628 and 7880 Flight 5484
1980s	Flight 4225 Flight 498 Flight 811 Flight 3603 Flight 8641 Flight 411 Flight 343 Flight 5463 Flight 601 Flight 3352 Flight F-637 Flight 3519 Flight 7841 Zolochiv mid-air collision Flight 5143 Flight 101/435 Flight F-77 Flight 2306 Flight 6502 Flight 892 Flight U-505 Flight N-528 Flight 699 Flight 3739
since 1990s	Flight E-35D CCCP-46472 crash Flight 2808 Flight 593 Flight 521 Flight 821 Flight 1492

v t e Aviation accidents and incidents in 1963 (1963)
Jan 13 Elephant Mountain B-52 crashFeb 1 Ankara mid-air collisionFeb 12 Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 705Mar 2 Philippine Air Lines Flight 984Mar 5 Aeroflot Flight 191Mar 5 Camden PA-24 crashApr 4 Aeroflot Flight 25May 3 Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul Flight 144Jun 3 Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 293Jul 2 Mohawk Airlines Flight 112Jul 3 NZ National Airways Flight 441Jul 13 Aeroflot Flight 012Jul 27 United Arab Airlines Flight 869Aug 12 Air Inter Flight 2611Aug 21 Aeroflot Flight 366Aug 24 Aeroflot Flight 663Sep 4 Swissair Flight 306Oct 22 BAC One-Eleven test crashNov 8 Aero Flight 217Nov 22 Poonch IAF helicopter crashNov 29 Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 831Dec 8 Pan Am Flight 214
1962 ◄ ► 1964

Aviation accidents and incidents in 1963 (1963)

Jan 13 Elephant Mountain B-52 crashFeb 1 Ankara mid-air collisionFeb 12 Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 705Mar 2 Philippine Air Lines Flight 984Mar 5 Aeroflot Flight 191Mar 5 Camden PA-24 crashApr 4 Aeroflot Flight 25May 3 Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul Flight 144Jun 3 Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 293Jul 2 Mohawk Airlines Flight 112Jul 3 NZ National Airways Flight 441Jul 13 Aeroflot Flight 012Jul 27 United Arab Airlines Flight 869Aug 12 Air Inter Flight 2611Aug 21 Aeroflot Flight 366Aug 24 Aeroflot Flight 663Sep 4 Swissair Flight 306Oct 22 BAC One-Eleven test crashNov 8 Aero Flight 217Nov 22 Poonch IAF helicopter crashNov 29 Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 831Dec 8 Pan Am Flight 214

1962 ◄ ► 1964

v t e Aviation accidents and incidents in the Soviet Union in the 1960s
1960	Aeroflot Flight 315 (February 1960) U-2 incident (May 1960) Aeroflot Flight 207 (June 1960) RB-47 shootdown incident (July 1960) Aeroflot Flight 036 (August 1960) Austrian Airlines Flight 901 (September 1960)
1961	Aeroflot Flight 068 (March 1961) Aeroflot Flight 245 (17 December 1961) Mineralnye Vody Aeroflot Il-18 crash (31 December 1961)
1962	Aeroflot Flight 902 (June 1962) Aeroflot Flight 415 (July 1962) Aeroflot Flight 03 (3 September 1962) Aeroflot Flight 213 (18 September 1962)
1963	Aeroflot Flight 191 (March 1963) Aeroflot Flight 25 (April 1963) Aeroflot Flight 012 (July 1963) Aeroflot Flight 366 (21 August 1963) Aeroflot Flight 663 (24 August 1963)
1964	Aeroflot Flight 721 (September 1964)
1965	Aeroflot Flight 101/X-20 (January 1965) Aeroflot Flight 542 (7 March 1965) Aeroflot Flight 513 (8 March 1965) Khanty-Mansiysk Aeroflot An-24 crash (20 March 1965) Aeroflot Flight 99 (November 1965)
1966	Aeroflot Flight 302 (16 February 1966) Aeroflot Flight 065 (17 February 1966) Aeroflot Flight 2723 (April 1966)
1967	Aeroflot Flight 5003 (January 1967) Aeroflot Flight 2230 (November 1967) Aeroflot Flight L-51 (December 1967)
1968	Aeroflot Flight 15 (February 1968) Seaboard World Airlines Flight 253A (July 1968)
1969	Yukhnov mid-air collision (23 June 1969) Aeroflot Flight F-28 (28 June 1969) Aeroflot Flight N-826 (3 August 1969) Aeroflot Flight 1770 (26 August 1969)
1950–1959 ◄ 1960–1969 ► 1970–1979

v t e Aviation accidents and incidents in Georgia (country)
Georgian SSR	Aeroflot Flight 207 (June 1960) Aeroflot Flight 663 (August 1963) Aeroflot Flight 244 (October 1970) Aeroflot Flight 6833 (November 1983)
Georgia	Tbilisi Tupolev Tu-154 crash (July 1992) Russian Air Force Mi-8 shootdown (December 1992)* Sukhumi airliner attacks (September 1993)* Gudauri helicopter crash (July 2022)
This includes accidents in the Georgian SSR and post-independence Georgia * refers to accidents and incidents that took place in Abkhazia.

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