More and more old Soviet planes are disappearing from the stage. Also today an aircraft has found its final resting place. An Antonov An-12 made a crash landing near Lviv airport this morning, Friday 4 October 2019.
Around 00:30 an Antonov An-12 (UR-CAH) of the Ukrainian Ukraine Air Alliance departed from Vigo airport, Spain, towards the Ukrainian city of Lviv. The plane would refuel there and then fly on to Istanbul. The flight itself had no problems, but just before landing things went wrong. Just over 1.5 km before the start of the runway, the Antonov made a crash landing. A shortage of fuel would have caused the crash. On pictures you can see that the cockpit is completely dented. It’s not clear what goods the aircraft transported.
In total there were 8 occupants. The impact was very heavy with result that 5 of them did not survive. 3 of them are still critical.
This is the third incident that the company, the Ukraine Air Alliance, has experienced in 7 years. On 9 August 2013, an Antonov An-12 burned out completely at Leipzig airport and on 30 August 2014 another Antonov An-12 crashed in Algeria. Then all passengers didn’t survived.
The Ukraine Air Alliance is a fairly well-known airline in Europe. It carries out cargo flights for itself, but also for third parties. After the crash this morning she has a fleet of 8 planes of which 6 Antonov An-12’s. There are no plans known to phase out the type. UR-CAH was built in 1968.
The Antonov An-12 is a very popular transport aircraft. There are no less than 1248 built and fly in all corners of the world. Not only does it serve civil aviation, also several states have An-12s in their military fleet such as Russia. Antonov himself has no plans for a renewal or upgrade of the type. Less than 40 would still be active.
