Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801 was an international charter flight from Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia, to Svalbard Airport on Spitsbergen, in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. On 29 August 1996 at 10:22:23 CEST, a Tupolev Tu-154M operating this flight crashed into the ground in Operafjellet during the final approach to Svalbard Airport. All 141 people (11 crew members and 130 passengers, of whom three were children) aboard the plane were killed, making it the deadliest aviation accident in Norway. The accident was the result of a series of small navigational errors causing the aircraft to be from the approach centerline at the time of impact. The Vnukovo Airlines aircraft, with the registration number RA-85621, had been chartered by Arktikugol, a Russian state-owned coal-mining company, to fly Russian and Ukrainian workers to the towns of Barentsburg and Pyramiden in Svalbard. The accident was a contributing cause for Arktikugol's closure of Pyramiden two years later. The accident was investigated by the Accident Investigation Board Norway with assistance from the Interstate Aviation Committee and became known as the Operafjell accident (). After the accident, a series of lawsuits determined compensation for the victims' families. History Flight Flight 2801 was a chartered flight flown by Vnukovo Airlines on behalf of Arktikugol, which operated mines at the two company towns of Barentsburg and Pyramiden in Svalbard. The aircraft was a Tupolev Tu-154M, with registration RA-85621, and serial number 86A 742. Its manufacture date was 14 January 1987. The crew consisted of captain Evgeny Nikolaevich Nikolaev (aged 44), co-pilot Boris Fedorovich Sudarev (aged 58), navigator Igor Petrovich Akimov (aged 50), flight engineer Anatoly Matveevich Karapetrov (aged 38), five cabin crew members, and two technicians. The captain had previously landed at Svalbard Airport; the co-pilot had not. On board were 130 passengers, consisting of Arktikugol employees and their families, three of whom were children. Waiting at the airport for the return flight were another 120 employees and their families. The aircraft left Vnukovo Airport at 04:44 UTC (08:44 MSD). Estimated flight time was three and a half hours, and alternative airports were Murmansk Airport and Severomorsk-3, both in Murmansk Oblast. The flight proceeded normally until descent, following the routing W 29 from Moscow to Padun (west of Murmansk), before crossing to Bodø Flight Information Region over the Barents Sea cruising at FL 350 (approximately ) at an average airspeed of . It then proceeded over non-directional