The Aviation Safety Network lists 154 air “occurrences” involving Ukraine, some dating back to the Soviet Union. It is part of the Flight Safety Foundation. The database for Ukraine lists 71 fatal accidents since 1919, with 1,391 casualties. The 1970s accounted for 24 fatal accidents alone. The database listing all of the accidents can be found here: https://aviation-safety.net
On Jan. 8, two minutes after takeoff, Ukrainian International Airlines flight PS752 heading to Kyiv crashed near Tehran. All 176 people on board were killed in the crash.
The event became the single deadliest catastrophe involving a Ukrainian air company. Yet, Ukraine has witnessed a number of plane crashes on its territory and involving Ukrainian air companies abroad, killing more than 1,000 people altogether.
These are the 10 deadliest plane crashes in Ukraine’s recent history.
MH17
Date: July 17, 2014
Number of victims: 298
Location: Hrabove, Donetsk Oblast
Reason for crash: a rocket fired from the Russian Buk missile launcher
Russian-led militants shot down Malaysian Airlines flight 17, heading from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 people on board, most of whom were Dutch citizens.
The attack took place amid Russia’s war against Ukraine.
A Joint Investigation Team was formed in late 2014. It included prosecutors from the Netherlands, Belgium, Malaysia, Australia and Ukraine. The team ruled that the plane was shot down by a rocket from a Buk missile launcher brought from Russia.
In 2019, Dutch prosecutors charged four people, three Russians and one Ukrainian, all Russian-led militants, for alleged murder. The trial in absentia is set for March 9.
In July 2019, Ukraine captured Volodymyr Tsemakh, who allegedly took part in returning the Buk missile launcher back to Russia. Tsemakh was questioned by authorities, but was later handed over to Russia as part of the Sept. 5 prisoner exchange. Dutch prosecutors condemned this action.
1979 Tupolev mid-air collision
Date: Aug. 11, 1979
Number of victims: 178
Location: Over Dniprodzerzhynsk (now Kamianske), Dnipropetrovsk Oblast
Reason for crash: air-traffic controller mistake
The deadliest Soviet-era plane crash over Ukraine took place when two Tupolev 134 aircraft collided mid-air because of an air traffic control error.
The Aeroflot flight from Voronezh to Chisinau and the Aeroflot flight from Donetsk to Minsk, carrying the players and staff of the Pakhtakor Tashkent soccer club, collided at 8,400 meters high, killing all people on board.
The area experienced heavy air traffic, while the ground air traffic control staff was inexperienced.
Mykola Zhukovsky, the controller in charge of leading the flights through Ukrainian territory, misread the log sequence of one plane, while his supervisor Volodymyr Sumy didn’t confirm a change in altitude of one of the planes.
After the crash, both Zhukovsky and Sumy received 15-year prison sentences. Sumy was released after serving 6.5 years in prison. Zhukovsky reportedly committed suicide.
UIA PS752
Date: Jan. 8, 2020
Number of victims: 176
Location: 20 kilometers north of Tehran, Iran
Reason for crash: unknown
UIA flight PS752 from Tehran to Kyiv took off on Jan. 8, at 6:12 a. m. local time (4:42 a.m. Kyiv time). The plane disappeared from radars 2 minutes later.
The Boeing 737–800 plane was purchased new in 2016 from the manufacturer. Its last service test was conducted on Jan. 6.
Most passengers were foreign citizens who were to use Kyiv as a layover: 82 Iranian citizens, 63 Canadian citizens, 10 citizens of Sweden, four from Afghanistan, three German nationals, and three citizens of the United Kingdom. There were two Ukrainian passengers on board as well as nine Ukrainian crew members.
In the aftermath, multiple unofficial videos were shared on Twitter depicting what appeared to be a plane catching fire and crashing.
Qassem Biniaz, a spokesman for Iran’s Road and Transportation Ministry, said that the plane had taken off from Imam Khomeini International Airport when a fire erupted in one of its engines.
President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the creation of an investigative commission.
Donetsk crash
Date: Aug. 23, 2006
Number of victims: 170
Location: Toretsk, Donetsk Oblast
Reason of crash: low visibility, pilot error
In 2006, a Russian Pulkovo Airlines flight heading from the Russian resort town of Anapa to Saint Petersburg crashed.
The plane, carrying 170 people, was passing Donetsk Oblast when it hit a storm cloud. In 2007, the Russian-led investigating commission ruled that the crew took unnecessary risks by frequently changing the plane’s altitude, causing the plane to lose control.
The crash occurred a day before Ukraine’s 15th Independence Day. Ex-President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko postponed the festivities.
Ukrainian missile
Date: Oct. 4, 2001
Number of victims: 78
Location: Black Sea
Reason of crash: struck by a Ukrainian S‑200 missile
A Siberian Airlines flight heading from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk was shot down over the Black Sea, 140 kilometers off the Russian coast, by a S‑200 long range surface-to-air missile. The rocket was fired by the Ukrainian Armed Forces during a joint Ukraine-Russian military air defense exercise in Cape Opuk, Crimea.
Instead of self-destructing after reaching the target range, the rocket locked on the passenger plane, 220 kilometers southeast of the practice site. A year after the crash, Ukraine agreed to pay $200,000 each to the families of those killed in the plane crash, without officially admitting guilt.
Sknyliv air show disaster
Date: July 27, 2002
Number of victims: 77
Location: Sknyliv airfield, Lviv Oblast
Reason of crash: pilot error
The Sknyliv air show disaster occurred on the outskirts of Lviv when a Su‑27 military jet crashed into a crowd of spectators after a failed aerobatics presentation.
Pilot Volodymyr Toponar and second pilot Yuriy Yehorov were performing a rolling maneuver, but lost control of the aircraft. The pilots catapulted before the plane crash, but 77 people, including 28 children, were killed by the plane as it hit the ground. Additional 543 people received injuries.
After the crash, the head of Ukraine’s Air Forces was fired and eventually five people – two pilots and three ground staffers – received a prison sentence. According to the pilots, their flight layout differed from the actual layout, making them unaware of the location of spectators. After this accident, air shows were banned in Ukraine.
Spanish troops
Date: May 26, 2003
Number of victims: 75
Location: Macka, Trabzon province, Turkey
Reason of crash: low visibility, due to dense fog
In 2003, a now-defunct Ukrainian charter UM Airlines was tasked with carrying Spanish peacekeeping forces from Afghanistan, where they served as part of an international force. Flight 420 was heading from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, to Spanish Zaragoza with a stopover in Trabzon to refuel. Due to dense fog, the pilot’s visibility was less than 10 meters. The pilots couldn’t identify the runway and, on their third approach, crashed into a mountain near the city of Macka, 24 kilometers south of Trabzon.
Aerosvit Flight 241
Date: Dec. 17, 1997
Number of victims: 70
Location: Pierian Mountains, near Thessaloniki, Greece
Reason of crash: compass failure, pilot mistake
The crash of Aerosvit flight 241, heading from Kyiv to Thessaloniki, was the first major plane crash in the history of Ukrainian aviation.
While approaching the Thessaloniki airport, the plane compass apparently was showing improper coordinates, resulting in a disagreement between the Thessaloniki air traffic control and the pilot. The ground control understood that the plane was heading in the wrong direction, yet due to poor English proficiency of both pilots and controllers, the crew wasn’t properly notified of the problem. The plane soon crashed into a mountain range near Thessaloniki, killing all 70 people on board.
Shooting down of military plane in Donbas
Date: June 14, 2014
Number of victims: 49
Location: Luhansk airport, Luhansk Oblast
Reason of crash: shot down by Russian led militants
Before shooting down MH17, Russian-led militants shot down a number of Ukrainian military planes. Among them was the Ukrainian Air Force Il‑76 plane carrying 49 people, all of whom died in the crash.
On June 14, three Il‑76 military planes where expected to land in Luhansk, a city in eastern Ukraine.
While the first plane landed safely in Luhansk, the second was shot down by Igla, a Russian portable surface-to-air missile. The third plane returned to a Ukrainian military base safely.
On March 27, 2017, Ukrainian General Viktor Nazarov was sentenced to seven years for negligence. According to the prosecution, Nazarov knew that the militants obtained surface-to-air missiles, yet still ordered the flights.
2002 Iranian crash
Date: Dec. 23, 2002
Number of victims: 44
Location: Zagros Mountains, near Isfahan, Iran
Reason of crash: GPS malfunction
A An‑140 plane operated by the now-defunct Aeromist Kharkiv collided with a mountain while heading to Isfahan, a city 400 kilometers south of Tehran.
The plane carried aviation experts from Ukraine and Russia who were scheduled to take part in the first test flight of an Iranian built An‑140 plane. All 44 people aboard were killed in the crash.
The plane was traveling from Kharkiv, with a stopover in Trabzon, Turkey. Iran’s civilian aviation authority blamed the crash on low visibility and the pilot’s failure to adjust the cockpit’s GPS.
