The airplane was operating flight 109 from Moscow to Chita and took off from Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport at 18:12 on May 17. After landing in Chelyabinsk and Novosibirsk, the Tu-104 arrived at Irkutsk, where the crew changed. The new crew took off at 03:02 Moscow time (09:02 local time) on May 18. At 09:15 the crew reported having reached an altitude of 9000 m. At 09:32 the controller at Chita cleared the flight to descend to 3900 m. At 09:36 the flight reported they had leveled off at 6500 m because it had been hijacked. Three minutes later the aircraft disappeared from radar. The remains of the aircraft were found in the taiga over a stretch of 10 km. It was determined that the hijacker carried a TNT explosive device weighing 5,5-6 kg. He was shot by an armed security officer on the aircraft. The hijacker almost immediately denoted the explosives. The blast breached the fuselage, causing an explosive decompression. The aircraft then broke up and crashed.