The aircraft made a very heavy landing and broke apart, after a poorly executed approach by an inexperienced co-pilot.

The accident aircraft was a Tupolev Tu-154B-1 operated by Aeroflot, registered as CCCP-85254 (msn 78A254), which was first flown in 1977 and had a total of 15859 flying hours accumulated over 8082 cycles.

[1] The investigation found the aircraft to be serviceable at the time of the crash with no significant faults.

The aircraft's tail broke off and 11 passengers were thrown from the fuselage and killed.

[1] The aircraft was handled poorly on the approach, had a very heavy landing and broke-up, killing 11 passengers.