Seventy of the 94 passengers and crew on board were killed when the plane overran the runway, after the pilot made a bet that he could make an instrument-only approach with curtained cockpit windows.

[1] The crew of the Tu-134A aircraft, serial number 62327 manufactured on 28 June 1979, consisted of pilot in command Alexander Kliuyev, co-pilot Gennady Zhirnov, navigating officer Ivan Mokhonko, flight engineer Kyuri Khamzatov, and three flight attendants.

[2] Kliuyev further ignored the ground-proximity warning at an altitude of 62–65 metres (203–213 ft) and did not make the suggested go-around.

[3] The top-secret report of the chairman of Kuibyshev oblispolkom V. A. Pogodin to Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov gave slightly different figures: Of 85 passengers and eight crew members aboard, 53 passengers and five crew members died in the crash and 11 more in hospitals later.

[3] Though Zhirnov made no attempt to avert the crash, he subsequently tried to save the passengers and died of cardiac arrest while on the way to the hospital.