Investigation Summary
The leg being flown was Nis to Amman, with planned technical stops at Amman, Riyadh, Ahmedabad and Dhaka; Dhaka was the cargo's ultimate destination, not the destination of this flight. According to Ukraine's NBAAI, in a statement of 25 May 2023 reported by the Aviation Herald, the crew reported a visible fuel leak in engine No. 4 at 19:25Z and decided to return to Nis; the engine caught fire after being shut down and the fire drill was unsuccessful. The crew declared a Mayday while descending through FL143 and the aircraft struck trees and power lines before impact. Greek civil aviation records a call at 19:37Z announcing a return for operational reasons and a clearance to land at Kavala at 19:45Z; the last ADS-B position was recorded at 19:40Z and contact was lost at 19:47Z. The NBAAI also noted that the same airframe had struck a light mast at Rzeszow on 19 June 2022, damaging the right wing leading edge, and that Germany's BFU downloaded the CVR. The Serbian defence minister described the load as 11.5 tonnes of Serbian munitions bought under a legitimate defence contract, a characterisation contested by reporting from iMEdD, KRIK and OCCRP; the figure in the investigation record is 12,102 kg of dangerous commercial cargo.
Final Conclusions
No authority has published findings. Greece's AAIASB/HARSIA, which leads the investigation, has issued no report of any kind, and the NBAAI lists the case as ongoing. No cause has been established and no analysis of the fuel leak, the fire or the loss of control has been published.
Photographic Evidence (1)
Video Analysis
No video analysis linked for this case file yet.
Airframe & Maintenance
Systems & Failure Modes
Ivchenko AI-20
The turboprop engines powering the An-12; the No. 4 engine suffered the initial fuel leak and fire.
Engine Fire Suppression System
The onboard system used by the crew to attempt to extinguish the No. 4 engine fire, which proved unsuccessful.
Interesting Facts
- 01The flight leg was Nis to Amman, with planned technical stops at Amman, Riyadh, Ahmedabad and Dhaka; Dhaka was the cargo's ultimate destination.
- 02The investigation record gives the load as 12,102 kg of dangerous commercial cargo; the 11.5 tonnes of Serbian munitions figure comes from the Serbian defence minister.
- 03Germany's BFU downloaded the cockpit voice recorder.
- 04The NBAAI noted that on 19 June 2022 the same airframe struck a light mast at Rzeszow, damaging the right wing leading edge.
- 05All eight crew, all Ukrainian nationals, were killed.
- 06Greece's AAIASB/HARSIA, which leads the investigation, has published no report of any kind.
Safety Actions & Advisories
NBAAI statement, 25 May 2023
Source ↗Ukraine's National Bureau of Air Accidents Investigation described the reported fuel leak, the post-shutdown fire, the unsuccessful fire drill and the Mayday, and listed the case as ongoing.
Known Controversies & Unanswered Questions
The nature of the cargo
Reference ↗Serbia's defence minister described the load as 11.5 tonnes of Serbian munitions sold under a legitimate defence contract with Bangladesh. That characterisation has been contested by reporting from iMEdD, KRIK and OCCRP. The figure that appears in the investigation record is 12,102 kg of dangerous commercial cargo, without a stated end user.
Location
ACCIDENT SITE · Coordinates taken from the wikidata coordinate.