Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801  Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801 was an international charter flight from Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia to Svalbard Airport in Longyearbyen, Svalbard Norway. On 29 August 1996, at 10:22:23 Central European Summer Time, crashed in Operafjellet, Svalbard, during the approach to Svalbard Airport, Longyear. All 141 people (11 crew members and 130 passengers, of which 3 were children) aboard the Tupolev Tu-154M were killed, making it the deadliest aviation accident ever 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, registration number RA-85621, had been chartered by Arktikugol, a Russian state-owned coal mining company, to fly Russian and Ukrainian workers to its Pyramiden town on Svalbard. The passengers all belonged to the Russian communities of Barentsburg and Pyramiden. 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, there were a series of lawsuits to determine the compensations to the victims' families. 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 flight crew consisted of captain Evgeny Nikolaevich Nikolaev (44), first officer Boris Fedorovich Sudarev (58), navigator Igor Petrovich Akimov (50), flight engineer Anatoly Matveevich Karapetrov (38), five cabin crew, and two technicians. The captain had previously landed at Svalbard Airport; the first officer 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).