August 29, 1996

Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801, an international charter flight from Moscow, Russia en route to Longyearbyen, Svalbard Norway.

The Tu-154M is a low-wing, trijet airliner, with a crew of 4.

Captained by 45-year-old Evgeny Nikolaev, an experienced pilot, who worked as an instructor pilot on the Tu-154.

The first officer is 58-year-old Boris Sudarev. Boris also worked as an instructor pilot on the Tu-154.

The navigator is 50-year-old Igor Akimov, and the flight engineer, 38-year-old Anatoly Karapetrov.

There are 130 passengers (including three children) onboard - employees of a Russian coal mining company, and their families. 120 employees, and their families are waiting for the plane at Svalbard Airport for the return flight.

The crew uses runway 28 for landing. For this, according to the Jeppesen maps, they need to fly over the NDB Advent.

The aircraft is reaching Advent and entering a base turn, reaching a magnetic heading of 160.

According to procedures, both horizontal situation indicators (HSI) are set to 283°, but the magnetic localizer course of 300° is not set. A global positioning system (GPS) is being used as a back-up.

While the crew adjusted for the wind drift, they did not attempt to intercept the magnetic course 155° outbound from Advent.

After a minute and a half the crew start the turn to bring the aircraft to 300 ° magnetic inbound.

However, the lateral deviation from the outbound magnetic course is 155°, or 3.7 kilometers (2.3 miles; 2.0 nautical miles) to the left.

Following the aircraft having rolled out on 290°, there is a discussion among the crew if the turn was made at the right time.
This results in a roll out of the turn to final approach, and a corrective turn to magnetic heading 306.

The pilots are not completely sure of the accuracy of their maneuvers, but they continue to descend.

The crew decides to rely on the navigator, who closely monitors the GPS readings.

At 08:22:23 UTC (10:22:23 local CEST) the aircraft collided with the top of Operafjellet at 907 meters (2,976 Ft) elevation, located 14.2 kilometers (8.8 mi) from Svalbard Airport.

The aircraft was destroyed, and all occupants perished.

It is the single deadliest plane crash to have occurred on Norwegian soil.

The plane was only 15 meters (49 feet) short of avoiding the collision.

The official investigation concluded that the flight, regarded as a controlled flight into terrain, was caused by pilot errors, and that there was no fault with the aircraft.

Because he was in a stressful situation, the navigator set the GPS in the wrong mode. He also did not have sufficient time to recheck his work, allowing this mistake to happen, and his work was not monitored by the pilots.

Situational awareness was also reduced because the crew were not aware they could check the aircraft location in relation to the centerline with a VDF (VHF direction finder).

The crew possibly put too much emphasis on the indications displayed by the GPS.

The aircraft descended into mountainous terrain without control over the lateral navigation.

Despite uncertainty and disagreement within the group, the approach was not abandoned, as the aircraft should have climbed to a safe altitude while the problem was solved.

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