[2] Four minutes after takeoff the aircraft made its last contact with the air traffic controller, and reached its maximum altitude of about 900 metres (2,953 ft).

[3] The aircraft crashed seven minutes after takeoff, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) south-east of its destination airport, near the city of Kolomna, in a wooded area killing all three crew members,[4][5][6] including two pilots and a flight engineer, all of whom were employees of Sukhoi.

The ascent was arrested at around 4,800 feet (1,463 m), but then the elevator automatically lowered the nose down to prevent an excessive angle of attack (AOA), so the aircraft started to descend again.

At 3,000 feet (914 m), the crew attempted to arrest the descend, but the elevators did not respond and the aircraft impacted with terrain in a wooded area with a velocity of 365 knots (676 km/h; 420 mph; 188 m/s).

[15][16][17] A source familiar with the situation told Izvestia that one of the engineers at the Lukhovitsky Aviation Plant installed two of the four angle-of-attack sensors with a deviation of approximately five degrees.This would have led to an (incorrect) activation of the stall warning system.