The Ilyushin Il-14M operated on a flight from the Molodezhnaya Ice Station to the Mirny Ice Station in Antarctica in support of the the 31st Soviet Antarctic Expedition. The estimated flight time was 7 hours and 45 minutes. The aircraft was equipped with skis and additional fuel tanks were located in the cabin. In the second half of the route, the crew got into severe icing conditions, which was not foreseen by the forecast, and was forced to reduce the flight altitude. Having descended to a level of 1500 m, the crew fell into the zone of a jet stream with hurricane force head winds (up to 140 km/h). This led to a decrease in ground speed and a shortage of fuel to reach the destination. At a distance of more than 200 km from Mirny station, the plane entered white out conditions with reduced visibility of almost zero. At 06:50 Moscow time, the crew reported that the remaining fuel was for 30 minutes of flight. At 07:05 it was decided to perform an emergency landing on a glacier. Due to the weather conditions it was impossible to determine the vertical distance to the glacier surface and its condition. Under these conditions the aircraft collided with the surface of the glacier. All occupants were killed.