| Date: | Friday 19 May 1978 |
| Time: | 13:43 |
| Type: |  Tupolev Tu-154B |
| Owner/operator: | Aeroflot / Azerbaijan |
| Registration: | CCCP-85169 |
| MSN: | 76A169 |
| Year of manufacture: | 1976 |
| Total airframe hrs: | 3308 hours |
| Cycles: | 1567 flights |
| Engine model: | Kuznetsov NK-8-2U |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 4 / Occupants: 134 |
| Other fatalities: | 0 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed, written off |
| Category: | Accident |
| Location: | 5 km SE of Maksatiha, Tver region -
 Russia
|
| Phase: | En route |
| Nature: | Passenger - Scheduled |
| Departure airport: | Baku-Bina International Airport (BAK/UBBB) |
| Leningrad-Pulkovo Airport (LED/ULLI) | |
| Confidence Rating: |  Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources |
Aeroflot Flight 6709, a Tupolev Tu-154B, was destroyed in a forced landing following a loss of power on all three engines.
The aircraft landed in a potato and barley field, bounced and broke up. Two to three minutes after stopping, the aircraft's fuselage caught fire and was destroyed. Four passengers were killed.
The simultaneous shutdown of all three engines occurred as a result of fuel depletion in the collector tank. This depletion happened because fuel was no longer being transferred from the other tanks.
The interruption in fuel transfer to the collector tank could have occurred due to:
- A malfunction in the automatic fuel transfer electrical circuits, possibly caused by a switch failure, activation of a circuit breaker, or a break in the circuit while the automatic mode was engaged.
- The crew manually turning off the "fuel automation" switch and simultaneously setting the "auto-manual" switch to the "manual" position during the transition to manual fuel transfer mode, while turning off the transfer pumps for one group of tanks and subsequently failing to turn on the pumps for the other group of tanks.
In both cases, the flight engineers did not monitor the operation of the fuel system and did not detect fuel depletion (as indicated by the fuel gauge). The warning (red light) indicating a critical fuel level in the collector tank did not activate.
The Tu-154B aircraft's fuel system had significant design flaws - it featured a single collector tank holding 3,300 kg of fuel, which supplied all three engines. There were no alternative fuel lines to supply the engines bypassing the collector tank. A single failure in the fuel system (loss of fuel from the collector tank) could disable all three engines even when fuel remained in the other tanks.
Sources:
airdisaster.ru
Soviet Transports
Location
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 02-Jun-2025 09:09 | ASN | Updated [Narrative, ] |
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