Ukrainian airplane crashes near Greece (12/21/97)

Ukrainian airplane crashes near Greece

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - An Air Ukraine aircraft borrowed by a competitor to complete the flight of 71 passengers who had been stranded in Odesa crashed near Salonika, Greece, in the evening of December 17 as it was preparing to land after a flight from Kyiv.

Nineteen hours after the plane disappeared from radar screens as it was approaching Salonika Airport rescuers, still had not found the site of the crash.

Greek officials said the chance of survivors is slim because the plane is believed to have gone down in rugged, snow-covered terrain near the slopes of Mount Olympus. The search for the plane and survivors, which has included naval vessels and fishing boats as well as helicopters, has been hampered by fog and freezing temperatures. "The weather is a big problem," said Greek Air Force Gen. Athanasios Tzoganis, the chief of the joint military staff, according to the Associated Press.

The plane, a YAK-42, was carrying 63 passengers, among them four children and two babies, and a crew of eight. Twenty-five of those aboard were Ukrainian citizens, 34 were Greek, two were Polish and one was German, said Leonid Pohrebniak, president of Aeroswift at a news conference in Kyiv.

The airplane's crew reported no problems as it approached Salonika Airport, which is flanked by the towering 9,626-foot peak of Olympus on one side and the Aegean Sea on the other.

At approximately 9:15 p.m. the crew was asked to circle and make a second approach because of heavy air traffic. As it did so its image disappeared from flight controllers' radar screens.

The Associated Press said unconfirmed reports suggested that the pilots, who did not speak English well, may have become confused while communicating with air traffic controllers.

Mr. Pohrebniak, Aeroswift's president, said that as far as he knew the crew was not familiar with the Salonika area. "Neither the commander of the flight, Aleksii Vcherashnyi, nor the other members of the crew had ever flown to Salonika," he said.

The passengers of the ill-fated flight had changed planes during a stopover in Odesa after the Boeing 737 they were on, owned by Aeroswift, a Ukrainian airline company, developed engine trouble after it left Kyiv. The passengers waited for four hours in Odesa while Aeroswift procured a craft from Air Ukraine in Lviv, a company partially owned by the Ukrainian government, said Mr. Pohrebniak.

The YAK-42 is a three-engine turbofan jet designed by the Soviet Union, which can carry up to 120 people. Russia, Lithuania, Cuba and China use the aircraft, as well as Ukraine. It entered service in 1980. Two earlier crashes of YAK-42s have occurred. In November 1993 a flight crashed into a mountain in southwestern Macedonia, killing 115 people, and in July 1992 another YAK-42 crashed near the city of Nanjing in China, killing 106 people.

Though Ukrainian airlines have been criticized in the past for the age of their fleets and for certain maintenance deficiencies, which led to a threat last year by John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York to ban Air Ukraine flights, this is the first crash of a Ukrainian-owned aircraft.

Serhii Lukianov, assistant director of the State Aviation Department of Ukraine, said all Ukrainian aircraft must meet stringent maintenance requirements and certifications. "If we say that an aircraft has departed, then it is 100 percent certain that it is airworthy. This is axiomatic," said Mr. Lukianov.

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