Tupolev Tu-154M (c/n 89A-815, RA-85849 of КОСМОС производственное объединение / KOSMOS Airlines), approaching runway of Václav Havel Airport Prague, January 2013.
Tupolev Tu-154 – together with two other airliners, Ilyushin Il-62 and Tupolev Tu-134 – represents the second generation of the Soviet narrow-body passenger aircraft, developed and introduced into service in the late 1960s. Those three new aeroplanes were created to replace the first, pioneering jet-powered airliners and, at the same time, to cover all developing needs of national air carriers of the Eastern bloc countries.
While the Il-62 was intended for long-haul flights and the Tu-134 was optimised for short routes with low passenger traffic, the Tu-154 was developed to cover the most popular medium-range flights. The aeroplane succeeded both jet-powered Tupolev Tu-104 (the second jet airliner in the world, introduced in 1956 – Tupolev Tu-104A) as well as propeller-powered Antonov An-10 and Ilyushin Il-18 aircraft.
On 4th October 1968, the Tu-154 performed its maiden flight and soon the characteristic trijet silhouette of the aircraft became a very common sight at international commercial airports. As initially expected, the Tu-154 was acquired by almost forty airlines from, among the others, the Soviet Union, the Eastern bloc countries and several Arabic states.
Some sources indicate that between 1972 and 1990, the Tu-154 airliners carried half of all passengers of Aeroflot and its subsidiaries. Capable of operating from gravel runways, in extreme Arctic conditions and not requiring sophisticated airfield facilities, the Tupolev´s medium-range passenger jets were usually able to fly in the areas where other airliners could not. Moreover, the Tu-154 became also one of the most popular official aeroplanes of the Eastern bloc, used for head-of-state and VIP transportation.
The Tu-154 was announced operational on 7th February 1972 and remained in active airline service for almost five decades. The final scheduled flight of that type of aircraft was reported on 28th October 2020 and was performed by the Tu-154M RA-85757 of Air Company ALROSA (Авиакомпания АЛРОСА), on route Mirny – Novosibirsk-Tolmachevo.
Commonly nicknamed паровоз (steam locomotive), полтинник (a 50-copecks coin) or ´Aurora´ (because of its three engines), the Tu-154 was also an extremely sturdy aircraft, designed for 45,000 hours of service life and with the possibility to increase that number up to 80,000 hours.
Taking into consideration the number of aircraft made (more than 1,000), the number of flying hours and extreme operational conditions, the Tu-154 was also, despite all rumours, one of the safest airliners in the world. There were only 110 serious accidents registered for this type and many of them were not caused by technical failures but were a result of terrorist actions, hijacking, runway conditions and human mistakes.
However, due to aforementioned fact that the Tu-154s were often used for VIP and official transport purposes, some of those accidents widely echoed across the world and caused negative opinion of that aircraft. Prime examples of such disasters were accidents from 2010 and 2016. In the first case, the Polish presidential Tu-154M jet crashed while approaching Smolensk airfield and the accident was caused by crew error when landing in heavy fog at airfield not suited for passenger airliner operations. In the latter case, sixty-four members of the famous Alexandrov Ensemble died in Tu-154B-2 crash that occurred near Sochi and also believed to be caused by a human error.
Serial production of the Tu-154 officially ceased in 1998. However, a few more aircraft were completed after that date for the Russian Ministry of Defence, with the last one, reportedly, made in 2013. Nevertheless, those airliners were made from already manufactured fuselages and spare parts, without re-launching the factory production line.
The Tu-154M pictured above within our Photo of the Week series, was manufactured in 1988 (although already carrying the construction number from the following year). On the 1st January 1989, the aeroplane was registered B-2620 and commenced service with China Northwest Airlines.
At the beginning of the 2000s, the Tu-154 returned to Russia, where it was operated by several local airlines, changing owners every two years, on the average. The final operator of that aircraft was Kosmos Airlines, which used that Tu-154 between January of 2013 and September of 2014. Then, the aircraft was retired from operational service and stored, with no further data available beyond October of 2014.
More information about the second generation of the Soviet passenger jets in our article from December of 2020 – The last commercial flight of Tu-154 in Russia – end of the era of Soviet airliners.
In addition, a short review of issues related to current development of the Russian passenger aeroplanes can be found in our article from April of 2024 – Modern Russian airliners – where the mistake was made?
