1985 Aeroflot Antonov An-12 shoot-down

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1985 Aeroflot Antonov An-12 shoot-down
Soviet Air Force
RegistrationCCCP-11747[Note 1]
Flight originCuito Cuanavale Airport, Cuito Cuanavale, Angola
DestinationLuanda International Airport, Luanda, Angola
Passengers13
Crew8
Fatalities21
Survivors0

The 1985 Aeroflot Antonov An-12 shoot down occurred on November 25, 1985, in

Cuando Cubango
province.

The incident took place in the aftermath of the Soviet Union-backed People's Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola's (FAPLA) operation 2 Congresso do Partido conducted against units of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA, which received support from South Africa).

The transport was carrying eight crew members, 13 passengers and two tank diesel engines in need of repairs. According to eyewitnesses from the local populace and investigative reports, the aircraft was shot down by a surface-to-air missile (SAM). All people on board the aircraft died in the crash.

Flight overview

The aircraft involved in the incident was an

Ukrainian SSR
. The An-12s were primarily used to support FAPLA and its military operations. All eight crew members and four of the passengers were Soviet nationals. Nine other passengers were Angolans.

The flight crew consisted of:

  • Captain: Sergei Vasilievich Lukyanov
  • First Officer: Alexei Nikolaevich Nikitin
  • Flight Engineer: Viktor Viktorovich Osadchuk
  • Navigator: Vladimir Borisovich Zhurkin
  • Flight Operator: Sergei Nikolaevich Grishenkov
  • Flight Interpreter: Vladimir Alekseevich Shibanov
  • Flight Interpreter Trainee: Sergei Nikolaevich Sholmov[2]

Crash

According to eyewitness reports and the

center of gravity and causing it to bank to the port side. The black box recordings indicated that the crew tried to level the An-12 and turn it towards Menongue's airport for an emergency landing; however, 47 seconds after the missile detonated, the port wing exploded and separated from the aircraft. The burning aircraft then crashed in a field about 43 kilometres (27 mi) away from Menongue, with the main part of the widespread wreckage landing in close proximity to the Menongue-Cuito Cuanavale road. The next day, several officers from the Soviet Military Mission in Menongue, accompanied by Cuban and Angolan troops, arrived at the crash site where they found all 21 bodies – the crew of 8 and 13 passengers – at the scene. The human remains were first transported to Menongue for identification and later to Luanda
. Coffins containing the remains of the Soviet crew and passengers were then transported to the Soviet Union.

Alleged shootdown

Civilians from local villages and members of the local people's defense organization (ODP – Organização de Defesa Popular), who had witnessed the midair explosion and the crash, said they had heard and seen what they believed to be a

port side. In the Soviet Union a specially designated commission under the direct supervision of the Chief of the Air Military Transportation Command of the Soviet Armed Forces was created to establish the cause of the crash. The commission's examination of parts of the aircraft's fuselage
revealed multiple traces of an explosive matter and fragments from the surface-to-air missile.

In his book Journey Without Boundaries, SADF Colonel

Cuando Cubango province, Angola, and with UNITA's help, protection and escort was secretly deployed around the Menongue area.[3] The main mission of the group was to carry out covert combat operations, code names "Catamaran 1" and "Catamaran 2", with the goal of disrupting air traffic in Cuando Cubango province by shooting down both Cuban and Angolan transports, combat aircraft and gunships with the Strela-l (SA-9).[3]

Diedericks' account is reiterated by Koos Stadler, another Reconnaissance Regiment soldier (colloquially known as the "Recces") in his 2015 book, RECCE: Small Team Missions Behind Enemy Lines .

Casualties

Crew of SSSR-11747

All 21 air force crew and military passengers were killed in the crash:

In 1987, a commemorative monument, featuring images of the An-12BP's crew members and their names, was erected in the city of Dzhankoy, where most of them were stationed and had lived.

Reactions and aftermath

In the 12 hours after the crash, the after-midnight news reports issued by the BBC, the Voice of America African Service and UNITA's radio station Galo Negro made almost identical announcements: UNITA was reported as having shot down a Cuban military cargo aircraft with Cuban personnel on board, in the same area that the An-12BP was shot down, using a surface-to-air missile. The next day, on November 26, 1985, UNITA officially claimed responsibility for shooting down the aircraft. However, several months later information obtained[by whom?] through various intelligence sources indicated that the An-12 was brought down by a missile launched from a Soviet-made 9K31 Strela-1, a vehicle-mounted short-range guided surface-to-air missile system. Several Strela-1s had been captured by the South African Defence Force (SADF) during a prior incursion into Angola.

In the aftermath of the crash, on December 5, 1985, a Mil Mi-8 helicopter was shot down. Two Mi-8 crews were tasked to provide close air support to a Cuban-reinforced infantry battalion that had orders to secure the crash area for the arrival of a team to conduct on-site investigation and help remove the wreckage for further investigation. As the battalion approached the area of the crash, it was ambushed by a far superior combined SADF/UNITA force deployed along the Menongue-Cuito Cuanavale road. A fierce fight ensued, resulting in a high number of dead and wounded from both sides. The two Mi-8s, both manned by Soviet Air Force crews, were called in to provide support for the Cuban battalion. On their arrival they came under heavy anti-aircraft ground fire. One was shot down; it crashed and burst into flames, killing the Soviet crew. There were also two Angolan soldiers from the newly formed 29th Airborne Assault Brigade, manning door-mounted guns on the helicopter, who also died in the crash.

Notes

  1. ^ The aircraft registration prefix for civil aircraft registered in the Soviet Union was SSSR. In the Russian cyrillic alphabet, the English letter "S" is written as "C" and "R" is written as "P", hence "CCCP" is "SSSR" in cyrillic.

References

  1. ^ "369th Military Transport Aviation Regiment". www.ww2.dk. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
  2. ^ "Гибель советского самолета в Анголе" [The death of a Soviet plane in Angola]. rsva.ru (in Russian). Archived from the original on 2019-03-22. Retrieved 2023-11-24.
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-1-920169-58-9. Archived from the original
    on 2014-10-06. Retrieved 8 October 2014.

External links
External image
image icon Monument commemorating the crew of the Antonov An-12 in Jankoi, Crimea, Ukraine

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