Aeroflot Flight 663 was a Soviet passenger flight from Tbilisi International Airport to Krasnodar International Airport that crashed on 24 August 1963, in the Kutaisi region. The crash involved an Aeroflot Avia 14. All 27 passengers and 5 crew on board were killed. Aircraft The aircraft had a serial number of 602107 and was released by Avia (Prague) on February 23, 1957. The passenger capacity of the cabin was 18 seats, although the aircraft was technically a cargo plane. The airliner was sold to the Soviet Union's Head Department of the Civil Air Fleet, where it received the registration number СССР-L1617 and was sent to the Tbilisi Joint Aviation Division of the Georgian Territorial Administration of the Civil Air Fleet. In 1959, a re-registration was carried out, which changed the registration to CCCP-61617. According to one source, the airliner was converted into an Avia 14M (Il-14M) model at an unknown date. The total operating time of the aircraft was 11,682 hours. Crew Pilot-in-Command — Archil Alekseevich Heteshvili Co-pilot — Georgy Bely Flight engineer — Mikhail Zakharovich Suprunov Radio operator — Grigory Ovanesovich Akopyants Accident Aeroflot Flight 663 was a passenger flight from Tbilisi International Airport to Krasnodar International Airport. At 10:08, the flight landed at Kutaisi International Airport, its first stop. At 10:45, the flight departed from Kutaisi, and after 3–4 minutes, an altitude of 600 meters was reported. In response, the dispatcher instructed to follow the main route at an altitude of 1,500 meters, while monitoring the weather conditions. At 10:52 the aircraft was reported to continue to Sukhumi at an altitude of 1,500 meters. The flight took place between cloud layers in conditions of heavy precipitation, but the ground was still visible. After that, the crew did not contact or answer calls. After departing from Kutaisi, Flight 663 began to deviate to the right of the route. In the Khoni area, the crew unexpectedly encountered a severe thunderstorm, with the lower cloud limit being 300–400 meters, and the visibility not exceeding 3 kilometers. Despite bad weather, Heteshvili decided not to return to the airport or follow the roundabout through Poti, but instead try to bypass the thunderstorm on the right side of the mountains. Bypassing to the right, the plane was flying at an altitude of 900 meters when it hit a zone with heavy rain, which the radio operator reported to the ground at 10:52. At 10:53,