1942 Aeroflot Li-2 Krasnoyarsk crash
However, immediately after takeoff, the aircraft crashed on the airfield grounds, killing all thirty people on board (other sources report twenty fatalities based on the number of identified names[1]).At the time, this was the second-largest aviation disaster on the territory of the USSR (after the ANT-20bis crash earlier that year, with 36 fatalities[2]).There are reports that Kirensk was an intermediate stop en route to the American Ladd Army Airfield (Fairbanks, Alaska), but the 5th Regiment only ferried aircraft on the Kirensk-Krasnoyarsk segment[3][4] From the memoirs of the squadron commander of the 4th Ferry Aviation Regiment Viktor Mikhailovich Perov [ru]:[4] We gathered at the airfield in a large group.The aircraft immediately burst into flames, as it had a full fuel load – three thousand one hundred liters of gasoline.Mazuruk's deputy Fokin remained to investigate the crash, while I immediately flew to Yakutsk with my squadron on the C-47.All the victims (passengers and crew) were buried in Krasnoyarsk at the Troitskoye Cemetery [ru].