100 largest aviation disasters in the USSR

The memorial at the crash site with the participation of two Tu-134 on August 11, 1979 near Dneprodzerzhinsk (now Kamenskoye)

This list includes the 100 ^{[* 1]} largest (by the number of fatalities) aviation accidents that occurred in the USSR . Disasters are arranged in decreasing order of total deaths in the accident. If the death toll is the same, then the earlier disaster takes precedence. The death toll is determined by the addition of the dead on board the plane with the dead on the ground. If a person died after 30 days from the moment of the incident, then this is classified as “fatal injury”, therefore, he is not counted as dead. The collision of aircraft is considered as one disaster ^[1] .

Of the disasters listed, 16 have more than 100 dead. The largest catastrophe in the territory of the USSR and in the history of all Soviet aviation (until 1991 inclusive) occurred on July 10, 1985 with a Tu-154 aircraft in the Navoi region near Uchkuduk ( Uzbek SSR ), while 200 people were killed ^[2] .

In some sources, the largest plane crash in the USSR indicates a border incident that occurred on September 1, 1983 over the Laperouse Strait off Sakhalin Island , when a Soviet fighter shot down a Boeing 747 of South Korean airline Korean Air Lines , which violated the USSR state border twice; while 269 people were killed ^[3] . However, during the fall, the plane crossed the border, leaving the open ocean, where it crashed into water. Thus, in fact, this plane crash occurred in the neutral waters of the Pacific Ocean , that is, outside the Soviet Union. On the position map (see below) the crash site is designated as KE007 (flight number) ^[4] .