Tupolev · Single-aisle jet
Tupolev Tu-154
Is the Tupolev Tu-154 safe? It ranks #0 of 53 airliner families we rate, with 29 fatal accidents counted in about 13 million passenger flights.
How the score is built
- Fatal passenger accidents
- 29 in 13 million flights
2.2 fatal passenger accidents per million flights. Counted: passenger flights, accidents and unexplained losses; not counted: sabotage, hijackings, shoot-downs and deliberate crew acts.
- Full-loss equivalents
- 20.7
Each counted accident adds the share of people on board who died (1 = no survivors). This is what the score is based on.
- Flights flown
- 13 million
Estimated passenger departures. Passenger departures 1972 to 7 October 2026 from a fleet model: deliveries with a median passenger service life of about 12 years and about 1,599 departures per aircraft per year (average of similar types in OpenSky). OpenSky sees too few of these aircraft because they were retired before 2019. After 1991 capped by departures reported by the former Soviet republics (World Bank). Uncertainty roughly ±50%.
- Technology generation
- Gen 2 jet (integrated autoflight, analogue cockpit)
Small fleets are pulled toward the record of their generation: 0.88 full-loss equivalents per million flights over 236 million flights. Weight of this family's own record: 81%.
- Last fatal passenger accident
- 1 January 2011
Kolavia flight KGL348, Surgut Airport (SGC), Russia: 3 of 134 people on board died.
- Hull losses
- 70
Civil aircraft destroyed or written off from all causes, including non-fatal accidents, cargo flights and attacks; airframes flown by air forces on military operations are left out (context only, not in the score).
Compared with everyday risks
One flight on the Tupolev Tu-154 carries about the same risk of death as the activities near it below.
- An hour's walk1 in 14 million
- Driving 100 miles (160 km)1 in 5.9 million
- A day of skiing1 in 1.3 million
- An ordinary day: accidents and violence1 in 1 million
- One flight on the Tupolev Tu-154This aircraft1 in 680,000
- A scuba dive1 in 500,000
- Cycling 100 miles (160 km)1 in 430,000
- Running a marathon1 in 290,000
- A skydive1 in 250,000
- A general anaesthetic1 in 100,000
- Riding a motorbike 100 miles (160 km)1 in 83,000
Accident history
29 fatal accidents count toward the score, with 2,582 people on board killed.
| Date | Flight | Killed | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kolavia KGL348Tu-154B-2 · Surgut Airport (SGC), Russia | 3 / 134 on board | While starting engines on a taxiway at Surgut, worn contacts let two unsynchronised generators connect, creating an electrical arc that set the rear of the aircraft on fire. The fire spread through the cabin during the evacuation.Type: FireASN record | |
| Dagestan AirlinesTu-154M · Moskva-Domodedovo Airport (DME), Russia | 2 / 171 on board | While moving fuel between tanks in the climb, the flight engineer accidentally switched off the feed pumps and two engines flamed out. The crew diverted to Domodedovo on one engine, landed hard beside the runway and hit a mound, breaking the aircraft in three.Type: FuelASN record | |
| Caspian Airlines CPN7908Tu-154M · 12 km S of Qazvin, Iran | 168 / 168 on board | Climbing out of Tehran, a fan disc in the left engine failed from fatigue and debris damaged the tail area. The crew lost control and the jet dived into a field near Qazvin.Type: Engine failureASN record | |
| Iran AirtourTu-154M · Mashhad Airport (MHD), Iran | 28 / 148 on board | While landing at Mashhad the Tupolev swerved, reportedly after a nose tyre burst, and caught fire.Type: Runway excursionASN record | |
| Pulkovo Aviation EnterpriseTu-154M · 45 km NW of Donetsk, Ukraine | 170 / 170 on board | Trying to climb over a very tall line of storms at cruise, the jet was thrown up by severe turbulence and the angle of attack rose sharply. It entered a deep stall and flat spin and fell into a field. Poor crew coordination and training were cited.Type: Loss of control in flightASN record | |
| Bashkirskie Avialinii BTC2937Tu-154M · Überlingen, Germany | 69 / 69 on board | At night over southern Germany the Tupolev and a DHL 757 converged at the same level. A lone controller ordered the Tupolev down late; its crew followed him instead of their collision-avoidance climb advisory, while the 757 also descended, and the two collided.Type: Mid-air collisionASN record | |
| Iran AirtourTu-154M · near Sarab-e Do Rah, Iran | 119 / 119 on board | Descending toward Khorramabad for a non-precision approach, the Tupolev hit Kuh-e Sefid mountain at about 9,100 ft, reportedly 3 nm left of the runway's extended centreline.Type: Flight into terrainASN record | |
| VladivostokaviaTu-154M · near Burdakovka, Russia | 145 / 145 on board | On a night approach to Irkutsk, the crew let speed drop in a turn while the autopilot held height. The angle of attack rose and a pilot's inputs steepened the bank; then the crew pulled back, and the jet stalled and spun into the ground.Type: Loss of control in flightASN record | |
| China Southwest Airlines SZ4509Tu-154M · Rui'an, China | 61 / 61 on board | During descent the crew found the control column behaving abnormally; when flaps were selected the aircraft stalled and dived into a field. A wrong type of nut in the elevator linkage had come off, leaving the crew without pitch control.Type: System failureASN record | |
| Cubana de AviaciónTu-154M · Quito-Mariscal Sucre Airport (UIO), Ecuador | 70 / 91 on board | The jet would not rotate at takeoff speed; the crew rejected late and it overran into a soccer field. Investigators believe that after delays starting the engines the crew missed a checklist item and left the flight-control hydraulic switches off.Type: Runway excursionASN record | |
| Tajikistan AirlinesTu-154B-1 · 13 km E of Sharjah Airport (SHJ), United Arab Emirates | 85 / 86 on board | During a radar-vectored descent toward Sharjah in turbulence, the crew stopped watching their altitude while preparing to land and descended below the assigned level into the desert. One passenger survived.Type: Flight into terrainASN record | |
| Vnukovo Airlines VKO2801Tu-154M · 14,3 km from Svalbard-Longyearbyen Airport (LYR), Norway | 141 / 141 on board | Flying an offset localizer approach, the crew set the wrong course, drifted right of the centreline and descended among mountains until hitting Operafjellet. Investigators cited navigator overload, language problems and poor crew coordination.Type: Flight into terrainASN record | |
| Khabarovsk United AirTu-154B · 50 km W of Grossevichi, Russia | 98 / 98 on board | At cruise altitude the jet suddenly rolled right into a steep spiral dive and hit a mountain. Fuel had been drawn from left wing tanks only, and the growing imbalance eventually overcame the autopilot.Type: Loss of control in flightASN record | |
| China Northwest AirlinesTu-154M · 29 km SE of Xian-Xianyang International Airport (XIY), China | 160 / 160 on board | Soon after takeoff the jet began rolling from side to side without command, then rolled left, dived and broke up in the air. The autopilot's roll and yaw channels had been cross-connected during a field repair the night before.Type: System failureASN record | |
| Baikal AirlinesTu-154M · near Mamony, Russia | 124 / 124 on board | A starter warning on the centre engine was dismissed as false before departure. Four minutes after takeoff the starter disintegrated; the fire that followed could not be put out, destroyed the hydraulics and the jet crashed among farm buildings.Type: FireASN record | |
| Iran AirtourTu-154M · 15 km from Tehran-Mehrabad Airport (THR), Iran | 131 / 131 on board | Just after takeoff the airliner was hit on the tail by an air force Su-24 that was making a visual approach to the parallel runway after an Air Force Day flypast; both aircraft crashed.Type: Mid-air collisionASN record | |
| Aeroflot, Leningrad Civil Aviation DirectorateTu-154B-1 · Leningrad-Pulkovo Airport (LED), Russia | 13 / 181 on board | Descending fast in a rain shower, the jet landed hard 13 m short of the runway; the right gear collapsed and the aircraft broke up.Type: Landed short or longASN record | |
| Aeroflot / TurkmenistanTu-154B-1 · Krasnovodsk Airport (KRW), Turkmenistan | 11 / 143 on board | The aircraft landed with extreme force, tearing off the tail section and breaking the forward fuselage. The co-pilot had flown the approach and landing in conditions where regulations did not allow it.Type: Hard landing or abnormal runway contactASN record | |
| Aeroflot / Uzbekistan SU5143Tu-154B-2 · near Uchkuduk, Uzbekistan | 200 / 200 on board | Cruising heavy and slow in hot air, the crew took vibrations for engine surges and pulled the throttles back to idle. Speed fell, the angle of attack rose until the Tu-154 stalled, and it entered a flat spin to the ground.Type: Loss of control in flightASN record | |
| Aeroflot, Krasnoyarsk Civil Aviation DirectorateTu-154B-2 · Krasnoyarsk Airport (KJA), Russia | 110 / 111 on board | The no. 3 engine burst after take-off because of a defective compressor disc, and the engineer shut down the wrong engine. The fire spread unchecked; electrics and hydraulics failed on the way back and the Tu-154 rolled into the ground.Type: Engine failureASN record | |
| Aeroflot, East Siberia Civil Aviation Directorate SU3352Tu-154B-1 · Omsk Airport (OMS), Russia | 174 / 179 on board | Maintenance vehicles were working on the runway at night without radios or beacons; a sleeping controller had not passed on their presence. The Tu-154 struck them on landing and caught fire. Four people in the vehicles also died.Type: Runway collisionASN record | |
| Aeroflot, Krasnoyarsk Civil Aviation DirectorateTu-154B-2 · Noril'sk Airport (NSK), Russia | 99 / 167 on board | Approaching Noril'sk, the Tu-154 sank fast below the glide slope at low speed with its centre of gravity far forward; even full trim could not arrest it. It hit a field roughly 470 m short and slid over frozen ground.Type: Landed short or longASN record | |
| TaromTu-154B-1 · Nouadhibou Airport (NDB), Mauritania | 1 / 168 on board | Unable to see the runway at decision height, the crew began a go-around after feeling what they took for ground contact; the Tu-154 had in fact touched water 300 m before the threshold. One person died.Type: Landed short or longASN record | |
| Aeroflot, Kazakstan Civil Aviation DirectorateTu-154B-2 · 5 km from Alma-Ata Airport (ALA), Kazakhstan | 166 / 166 on board | Two minutes after take-off, in very hot air, wind effects cut the airspeed and a downdraft followed. The Tu-154 stalled, struck a farm and broke up in a wheat field before sliding into a ravine.Type: Windshear or stormASN record | |
| Aeroflot / AzerbaijanTu-154B · 5 km SE of Maksatiha, Tver region, Russia | 4 / 134 on board | All three engines stopped when the single collector tank ran dry: fuel had stopped flowing into it from the other tanks, unnoticed by the flight engineers. The Tu-154 made a forced landing in farmland, broke up and burned.Type: FuelASN record | |
| Libyan Arab Airlines, lsf Balkan Bulgarian AirlinesTu-154A · near Benghazi, Libya | 59 / 165 on board | Heavy fog prevented a landing at Benghazi, and the crew could not find their alternate airport. The Tu-154, carrying Hajj pilgrims, ran out of fuel and was put down in a forced landing.Type: FuelASN record | |
| Aeroflot, International Civil Aviation DirectorateTu-154A · Macías Nguema Biyogo Island, Equatorial Guinea | 45 / 45 on board | Soon after leaving Malabo, the Tu-154 flew into Mount San Carlos at the south end of Bioko at about 750 m. The cause was not established; a failed navigation radar that left the crew unsure of their position was suspected.Type: Flight into terrainASN record | |
| Malev Hungarian AirlinesTu-154A · 10 km off Beirut International Airport (BEY), Lebanon | 60 / 60 on board | With the localiser out, the crew flew a night NDB approach to Beirut and the jet went into the sea about 6 miles out. Witnesses reported a fire or explosion, but nothing supported this; the cause was undetermined.Type: Unknown causeASN record | |
| Aeroflot, International Civil Aviation DirectorateTu-154 · 0,5 km NE of Praha-Ruzyne International Airport (PRG), Czechia | 66 / 100 on board | On the ILS approach the jet suddenly sank under the glide slope and hit the ground nose wheel first about 470 m short, then broke up and burned. The official cause was undetermined; a stabiliser trim error by the co-pilot has been suggested.Type: Unknown causeASN record |
Listed but not counted
These events did not happen on regular passenger flights or were caused by a crime or a deliberate act, which says little about the aircraft design.
| Date | Flight | Killed | Why not counted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Russian Air ForceTu-154B-2 · 1,6 km SW off Adler, Russia | 92 / 92 on board | Military operation. Soon after leaving Sochi over the sea, the Tu-154 carrying the Alexandrov military choir turned back towards the coast and plunged into the Black Sea. The captain probably lost spatial orientation.Type: Loss of control in flightASN record | |
| Polish Air ForceTu-154M · ca 1 km E of Smolensk Air Base, Russia | 96 / 96 on board | Military operation. Polish Air Force flight carrying President Lech Kaczynski and senior officials that hit trees and ground short of the Smolensk runway in thick fog. Investigators found the crew went below safe height without checking the altimeter and reacted too late to terrain warnings.Type: Flight into terrainASN record | |
| Sibir AirlinesTu-154B-2 · 8 km from Gluboki, Russia | 46 / 46 on board | Unlawful interference (sabotage, hijacking or shoot-down). Bombing. A Chechen suicide bomber who had bribed her way past check-in set off explosives at cruise altitude on the flight to Sochi; the jet broke up. Another airliner from Domodedovo was bombed the same night.Type: SecurityASN record | |
| Sibir Airlines SBI1812Tu-154M · 184 km off Adler, Russia [Black Sea], Atlantic Ocean | 78 / 78 on board | Unlawful interference (sabotage, hijacking or shoot-down). Shoot-down. A Ukrainian surface-to-air missile launched during a military exercise in Crimea missed its target drone and exploded near the airliner over the Black Sea; it lost pressure, caught fire and fell into the sea.Type: SecurityASN record | |
| Vnukovo AirlinesTu-154M · Madinah-Mohammad Bin Abdulaziz Airport (MED), Saudi Arabia | 3 / 174 on board | Unlawful interference (sabotage, hijacking or shoot-down). Hijacking. Three Chechen hijackers took over the flight from Istanbul and had it flown to Medina. When they threatened to blow it up, Saudi forces stormed the plane; a flight attendant was killed by the hijackers.Type: SecurityASN record | |
| LuftwaffeTu-154M · 120 km W off Namibia, Atlantic Ocean | 24 / 24 on board | Military operation. German Air Force flight that collided over the South Atlantic off Namibia with a US Air Force C-141 cargo jet, killing everyone on both. The US board found the Tu-154 was at a level it had not filed for, and Luanda ATC failed to warn either crew.Type: Mid-air collisionASN record | |
| Orbi Georgian AirwaysTu-154B · Sukhumi-Babusheri Airport (SUI), Georgia | 108 / 132 on board | Unlawful interference (sabotage, hijacking or shoot-down). Shoot-down. Abkhaz separatist forces brought the jet down as it arrived at Sukhumi from Tbilisi; it hit the runway and caught fire.Type: SecurityASN record | |
| Tbilisi Aviation EnterpriseTu-154B · Tbilisi-Novo Alexeyevka Airport (TBS), Georgia | 24 / 24 on board | Cargo flight. Cargo flight carrying tea, plus passengers without tickets, that never got airborne at Tbilisi; it overran, hit the localizer building and fell into a ravine. Investigators found it was more than 2 tonnes too heavy for the conditions, with the balance too far forward.Type: Runway excursionASN record | |
| Aeroflot Russian International AirlinesTu-154 · Moscow-Vnukovo Airport (VNO), Russia | 1 / 115 on board | Unlawful interference (sabotage, hijacking or shoot-down). Hijacking. A lone passenger with a grenade demanded to go to Turkey; after the jet landed at Vnukovo, security forces shot him dead. Nobody else was hurt.Type: SecurityASN record | |
| TaromTu-154B-2 · Bucharest-Otopeni International Airport (OTP), Romania | 5 / 5 on board | Training flight. On a training flight a crew member retracted the flaps too early while practising an engine failure on take-off, and the Tu-154 crashed.Type: Loss of control in flightASN record | |
| Aeroflot, East Siberia Civil Aviation DirectorateTu-154B-2 · Veshchevo Air Force Base, Russia | 9 / 84 on board | Unlawful interference (sabotage, hijacking or shoot-down). An 11-member family from Irkutsk hijacked the domestic flight and demanded to go to London. During a refuelling stop at a military airfield troops stormed the jet; explosions wrecked the tail, and five hijackers, three passengers and a flight attendant died.Type: SecurityASN record | |
| Balkan Bulgarian AirlinesTu-154 · 22,5 km NE of Damascus, Syria | 4 / 4 on board | Not a scheduled passenger flight. The Tu-154 crashed on approach to Damascus, killing the four on board. No cause is recorded.Type: Unknown causeASN record | |
| EgyptAirTu-154 · near Cairo, Egypt | 6 / 6 on board | Training flight. At the end of a long training flight the crew practised a go-around at Cairo. The nose kept rising until the Tu-154 stalled too low to recover. A wrongly calculated centre of gravity and ballast that may have shifted aft were contributing factors.Type: Loss of control in flightASN record |
The Tu-154 is almost gone, and its record is weaker than that of Western trijets of its generation such as the Boeing 727. Up to 7 October 2026 it has 42 fatal events in our data. 29 count, in about 13 million passenger flights; 13 of those were in the Soviet era, and the last was in 2011. Crew handling, poor maintenance and fires stand out. Soviet-era flight counts are estimates, so the true rate is uncertain.
What the Tu-154 is and where it still flies
The Tu-154 was the Soviet Union's medium-haul trijet: three engines at the tail, a T-tail and main gear that folds into pods behind the wing, built to use rough runways. It first flew in 1968 and entered service in 1972. Tupolev built 1,026, typically with about 160 seats, ending with the Tu-154M, which had more economical engines. Older versions flew with a navigator and flight engineer as well as two pilots.
Aeroflot flew hundreds, and after 1991 they passed to dozens of new airlines in Russia and the former Soviet republics. Balkan, Malév, Tarom, Cubana, Chinese and Iranian airlines flew it too. About 10 remain, mostly with Russian state and military units. Regular passenger flights have ended.
Stalls and handling
Several of the worst accidents began with crews flying close to the aircraft's limits. Aeroflot 5143, cruising slowly in hot air over Uzbekistan in 1985, stalled into a flat spin; all 200 died, the deadliest Tu-154 accident. In 1980 a Tu-154 leaving Alma-Ata in very hot air lost speed in a downdraft and stalled (166 dead). On 22 August 2006 Pulkovo 612 tried to climb over a line of storms near Donetsk, was thrown up by turbulence and fell in a deep stall; all 170 died. Vladivostokavia 352 stalled in a turn on approach to Irkutsk in 2001 (145).
Maintenance, engines and fire
- 6 June 1994, China Northwest 2303: the autopilot's roll and yaw channels had been cross-connected during a repair the night before. The jet rolled out of control after take-off from Xi'an and broke up; all 160 died.
- 3 January 1994, Baikal Airlines: a starter warning was dismissed as false, and the starter then disintegrated after take-off from Irkutsk. The fire destroyed the hydraulics; 124 died.
- 15 July 2009, Caspian Airlines 7908: a fan disc failed from fatigue, debris damaged the tail and the crew lost control near Qazvin. All 168 died.
The last counted accident was on 1 January 2011, when an electrical arc set a Kolavia Tu-154 on fire while it started engines at Surgut. Three of 134 died.
Collisions and terrain
On 1 July 2002 a Bashkirian Airlines charter collided with a DHL 757 over Überlingen after its crew followed a controller's late order to descend instead of their collision-avoidance advisory to climb. All 69 on the Tupolev died. In 1993 an Iran Airtour Tu-154 was hit by an air force Su-24 just after take-off from Tehran (131). Vnukovo Airlines 2801 flew into a mountain on Svalbard in 1996 (141), and Iran Airtour lost another near Khorramabad in 2002 (119).
What is left out
Six acts of violence are listed but not counted. On 4 October 2001 a Ukrainian missile fired in an exercise brought down Sibir Airlines 1812 (now S7 Airlines) over the Black Sea; all 78 died. Seven military, cargo, training and other crashes are also left out, among them the Polish Air Force flight at Smolensk in 2010 (96) and the Russian Air Force jet carrying the Alexandrov Ensemble that crashed off Sochi in 2016 (92). Our methodology explains why.
How to tell if you are on one
Flight trackers show T154. Three engines at the tail, a T-tail and long gear pods behind the wings make it hard to mistake.
Questions people ask
Is the Tu-154 still flying?
Only just. About 10 of the 1,026 built remain in service, mostly with Russian government and military units. Russian airlines ended regular passenger flights in the 2010s. North Korea's Air Koryo is reported to keep one or two for occasional flights.
Why is the Smolensk crash not counted?
The Tu-154M that crashed at Smolensk on 10 April 2010, killing President Lech Kaczyński and 95 others, was a Polish Air Force flight. Our flight counts cover airline passenger flights only, so military and government flights are listed in the history but not counted. Investigators found the crew descended below a safe height in thick fog without checking their altitude.
What happened at Überlingen?
On 1 July 2002 a Bashkirian Airlines Tu-154 and a DHL Boeing 757 converged at night over southern Germany. A lone controller told the Tupolev to descend just as its collision-avoidance system told the crew to climb. They obeyed the controller, the 757 also descended, and all 71 people on both aircraft died. Pilots are now trained to follow the system's advisory over a controller's instruction.
What was the deadliest Tu-154 crash?
Aeroflot flight 5143 on 10 July 1985. Cruising heavy and slow in hot air, the crew mistook buffeting for engine surges and pulled the throttles to idle. The jet stalled, went into a flat spin and hit the ground near Uchkuduk in Uzbekistan. All 200 on board died.
Sources
- 1.ASN record: Aeroflot flight SU5143, near Uchkuduk, 10 July 1985 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 2.ASN record: Bashkirian Airlines flight 2937, Überlingen, 1 July 2002 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 3.ASN record: Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise flight 612, near Donetsk, 22 August 2006 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 4.ASN record: Caspian Airlines flight 7908, near Qazvin, 15 July 2009 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 5.ASN record: Polish Air Force Tu-154M, Smolensk, 10 April 2010 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 6.ASN record: Sibir Airlines flight 1812, Black Sea, 4 October 2001 (opens in a new tab) · Aviation Safety Network
- 7.SafetyScorer fleet model (World Bank departures, OpenSky averages) (opens in a new tab)Passenger departures 1972 to 7 October 2026 from a fleet model: deliveries with a median passenger service life of about 12 years and about 1,599 departures per aircraft per year (average of similar types in OpenSky). OpenSky sees too few of these aircraft because they were retired before 2019. After 1991 capped by departures reported by the former Soviet republics (World Bank). Uncertainty roughly ±50%.