Baikal Airlines Flight 130 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Irkutsk to Moscow operated by a Baikal Airlines Tupolev Tu-154 that crashed onto a dairy farm on 3 January 1994 in Mamony whilst the pilots were trying to return to the airport following a mid-air emergency.

[1] Investigation conducted by Russian MAK concluded that the crash was caused by loss of control due to an in-flight fire.

The flight crews attempted to return to the airport but due to the damaged hydraulic lines they could not control the aircraft and crashed onto the farm.

Then-Minister of Transport Vitaly Efimov stated that the aircraft was carrying 4 extra passengers who were not listed on the official manifest.

[1] Barely 4 minutes after taking off, just when the aircraft was about to reach an altitude of 6,000 meters, the fire alarm suddenly blared inside the cockpit.

Due to the quick spread, Captain Gennady decided to turn back towards Irkutsk for an emergency landing.

[2][8] The ATC quickly approved Flight 130 for an emergency landing and ordered them to descend to 900 ft for an approach from the south of the airport.

Captain Gennady told them that the landing gear could not be extended at all and asked the crew to use the second hydraulic systems.

On 12:08 p.m, just merely less than 10 minutes after taking off, at a speed of 510 km/h (280 kn; 320 mph), the aircraft crashed onto a dairy farm in the village of Mamony, 15 kilometres (9.3 mi; 8.1 nmi) from Irkutsk airport.

[9][10] The rapid loss of control was caused by the ignition of fire that spread quickly within the No.2 engine compartment.

The heat that had been caused by the failure produced flames on the engine's gearbox as the oil that coated the component had ignited.

This was fed by fuels and hydraulic fluids that had been flowing continuously onto the area as the lines had been sliced by debris, resulting in a larger flame.

The engine had failed in a violent manner in which parts of the starter turbine had ruptured the casing of the combustion chamber.

Knowing that the fire would grow uncontrollably, the crew decided to turn back towards Irkutsk to land as quickly as possible.

[2] Examination of the engines showed that the failure might have been caused by a foreign object inside the air starter, presumably fragments from the air-to-air radiator guide vanes that had fallen into the area.

Pressurised air was constantly supplied into the engine, causing it to spontaneously spin even when the crew had not pressed the button to start it.

When the crew lighted up the engine, the already-spinning turbine progressively spun faster until it reached a dangerous level.

High rotational speed, added with the increasing heat of the engine itself, caused the air starter turbine disk to break apart.

[2] The engine failed in a violent manner, in which the blown turbine caused the fuel supply pipelines located nearby to be sliced.

Due to the unusual nature of the engine failure (i.e., spontaneous rotation prior to start-up), the crew could not comprehend the cause of it.

Findings by the IAC showed that the existing manuals had not addressed such issue, which would have provided the correct actions for the pilots to use to handle such situations.

The correct action would have been to turn off the malfunctioning engine, even with normal flight parameters, but due to the absence of a manual, the crew decided to take off as they didn't think that the situation was severe.

[2] The flight crews at the time didn't think that the alarm was an emergency, as they thought that the design of the Tupolev Tu-154 would not have made it possible to happen.

The previous predecessor of the Tu-154M variant was equipped with a check valve, which would shut off the supply of air to the engine starter.

[2][6] Apart from the incomplete manual and lack of information regarding the updated design, several shortcomings in the aircraft system were also noted.

[2] The Russian investigation concluded that the crash was caused by a catastrophic engine failure due to the presence of a foreign object inside the No.

[2] In response to the tragedy, the department of air transport issued all operators of the Tupolev Tu-154M to conduct a specialised in-depth inspection of the engines.

Tupolev eventually updated their flight manual, and added guidance for pilots to use in case they faced similar problem in the future.

Additionally, authorities were considering on a modification on the design of the Tupolev Tu-154, in which its flaws, during the crash of Flight 130, had caused all vital system of the aircraft to not be able to be operated following isolated non-localized failure.

[11][12] A project to build a church at the crash site by a local bishop was approved by Mamony parish council.