peashooter85:A Lost Bet and the Crash of Aeroflot 6502, On the 20th of October, 1986, Soviet domesti
peashooter85:A Lost Bet and the Crash of Aeroflot 6502, On the 20th of October, 1986, Soviet domestic airliner Aeroflot 6502 was on approach for landing at Kurumoch Airport in Grozny after completing a flight originating from Svedlorsk. The flight was piloted by Alexander Kliuyev and co-pilot Gennady Zhirnov. Upon the approach for landing, Kliuyev bet Zhirnov that he could land the plane flying by instrument only, with the cockpit windshield curtains closed, and ignoring the airport’s radio transceiver and visual beacons. When the ground proximity alarm sounded, signaling that the plane was making too deep of a descent, Kliuyev continued the landing, trying to correct his angle of descent. But it was too late.Aeroflot 6502 slammed into the ground nose first, tumbled end over end off the runway, then caught fire after settling upside down off the runway. In the resulting crash, 64 passengers and crew were killed out of 94. Among them were Gennady Zhirnov, who suffered a fatal heart attack while helping passengers off the plane. Kurumoch was sentenced to 15 years in prison, but was released after serving six. -- source link