The aircraft involved in the accident was a Tupolev Tu-124V with two Soloviev D-20P engines, registered SSSR-45028 to the Soviet Union's state airline, Aeroflot. At the time of the accident, the aircraft had accumulated 1,612 flight hours and 1,151 pressurization cycles in service.^[1][2]

Thirty passengers and crew members were on board the flight. The crew consisted of the following:^[3]

• Captain Ivan Kostin
• Captain trainee Victor Sjulin
• Check captain Pavel Saveliev
• Co-pilot Victor Kiryakov
• Radio operator Evgeny Ivanov
• Flight engineer Alexander Danilov
• Navigator Leonid Gostev

Stewardesses Zoya Chicherina and Tamara Kolesnikova worked in the cabin.

The aircraft was de-iced before takeoff. In the cockpit, the check captain observing the trainee's performance sat on the right; the trainee sat on the left. The captains and first officer remained in the cabin and did not assist the trainee and check captain during takeoff. Flight 513 took off from the runway at a bearing of 100°. At an altitude of 40–50 meters the angle of attack increased to the point of causing a stall. The Tu-124 never recovered from the stall and crashed into a field of snow. All 9 crew members and 21 out of 30 passengers died in the accident; There were initially 16 passenger fatalities, but five passengers later died in hospital from their injuries.^[4]

The investigation concluded that the accident was most likely caused by:^[4]

• Failure of the altitude indicators to display the correct outputs as result of a design flaw in the Tu-124;
• Water ingress from de-icing causing the altitude indicator to malfunction.

One member of the investigation board disagreed with the conclusions reached, insisting that the accident was caused by pilot error.