at Alma-Ata. In violation of procedures the controller did not inform the flight of visibility conditions or the altitude of the lower cloud boundary. At an altitude of 3000 meters the flight contacted air traffic control and received permission to descend to an altitude of . The landing was to be carried out on a bearing of 230°. The controller did warn of the presence of fog at the airport, but said that it had subsided a bit and it probably he did not expect visibility to go below the minimum safe level. The crew began to execute the approach as planned, but by the fourth turn the aircraft was to the right of the center of the runway. When the flight was away from the runway, the controller instructed the flight to decrease altitude to and warned that visibility was starting to worsen. When the aircraft was from the end of the runway it entered the glidepath and continued decreasing altitude for the landing. The visibility at the airfield had reached , well below the minimum safe distance; the controller did not inform the flight or the operations manager of the situation. The current conditions required the flight to be switched to the alternate airport but it was not. The non-directional beacon lights pulsed, but the aircraft began to deviate to the left slightly. The controller notified the crew of the deviation and instructed them to correct course by 2° and follow the lights to approach the runway. The crew confirmed hearing what the controller said and stated that they saw the beacon lights. The controller then instructed the flight to change course by 3°; the aircraft went from being slightly to the left of the runway to slightly to the right. The controller advised the crew to abort the landing and do a go-around, but the crew ignored the instruction and continued with the landing. During the approach, check captain Azakov instructed the pilot-in-command Artamonov to conduct and instrument approach, while Azakov took on other landing duties. There was confusion among the crew at decision altitude (130 meters) because the controller told them to go-around due to visibility but both the navigator and inspector told the captain they saw the runway lights, leading the captain to continue the landing. Shortly thereafter the crew lost sight of the lights, but the captain was not aware that the rest of