Early NK-8-4-engined Il-62s suffered from performance problems including fatigue and overheating issues with the engines , sometimes leading to false fire alarms which could possibly cause the crew to accidentally shut down paired engines to prevent contiguous engine and fuselage damage . Flying with only two paired engines on the same side would , however , render the aircraft unbalanced and difficult to control . Subsequent modifications to the Il-62 and the VC10 ( which had a similar engine arrangement ) largely rectified this problem . There were two fatal Il-62 losses involving engine failure , both occurring with aircraft owned by LOT Polish Airlines , which had also leased a number of Il-62s from Aeroflot and Tarom . The higher fatality accident ( 183 ) was a fully laden Il-62M Flight 5055 on 9 May 1987 which experienced a rear fuselage fire that possibly went unnoticed by the crew , hence their decision not to land at one of two nearby airports . Control of the plane was eventually lost on the return flight to Warsaw , most likely due to one of the auxiliary fuel tanks fitted to some LOT Il-62s having ignited . The other was an unmodified ( early version ) NK-8-4-powered Il-62 Flight 007 which crashed on 14 March 1980 with 87 fatalities after being fitted with an engine that had previously caused vibration problems when used on two other LOT aircraft ( the investigation suggested that the turbine disc was damaged before its final installation )
Flight 5055
LOT Polish Airlines Flight 5055
Ilyushin Il-62