The flight departed from Sverdlovsk with an expected arrival in Grozny, but near the airport of Samara, where a stopover was planned, the commander Kliuyev made a bet with the co-pilot Zhirnov: to land with the cockpit curtains lowered and therefore totally blind except for the instruments.
The result was not what was hoped for and the plane impacted the runway at a speed of 280 km/h; overturning, it caused the death of 53 passengers and 5 crew members, another 11 people later died in hospital; the co-pilot’s heart failed while the captain survived and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, later reduced to 6 of community service.