On 16 February at 23:35 pm the crew of flight 65 were preparing for departure and received a weather report of visibility, with mist, light snow and a relative humidity of 100 percent. Recent snow had been cleared from the runway but not from its full width. A strip approximately wide had been plowed down the center of the concrete runway leaving snow deep along the runway edges. The visibility minimum for takeoff of a TU-114 was. At 1:37 am the aircraft crew radioed the control tower requesting the actual visibility and the controller reported. The controller later testified that he counted the runway edge lights he could see looking down the runway. He believed the distance between these lights to be when in fact it was. At 1:38 am the aircraft began its take-off roll one degree to the right of the runway center line. Approximately 30 seconds later the aircraft was down the runway when the crew realized they were approaching the plowed snow on the right edge and overcorrected to the left four degrees. When the aircraft reached, down the runway the pilotrotated the nose wheels off the ground. At a distance of meters from the beginning of the runway, accelerating through, the left main landing gear entered the deep snow, causing the aircraft to yaw left and pitch down. The left main gear then impacted a runway edge light. Instead of aborting the take-off the pilot banked right, striking the propellers of engines 3 and 4 on the runway. The aircraft then spun to the right, flipped over and burst into flames. The forward fuselage and main wing section were completely destroyed. The force of the impact tore away the tail section and it came to rest inverted separated from the burning forward section. Many of the survivors were seated in this part of the aircraft.
Aircraft
The accident aircraft was a Tupolev Tu-114 with aircraft registration CCCP 76491 and manufacturer's serial number 64M472. The airliner was manufactured in 1964, delivered to Aeroflot on 12 December of that year and entered service on 18 November 1965; it was the last Tu-114 produced. At the time of the accident it had accumulated 93 hours with 19 take-off/landing cycles, and flown approximately.
Investigation
In a report released 12 May 1966 the investigating board indicated the main cause of the crash were errors made by the aircraft crew and poor organization of the airport traffic control service. Contributing factors included limited visibility in poor weather conditions and failure to properly clear the runway of snow.
