Having received the information about the aircraft's location, air traffic control (ATC) gave an erroneous instruction to turn. The crew also mistakenly chose a heading of 199 degrees instead of 140. ATC subsequently gave the proper heading, but instructed the crew to descend to 600 m (2,000 ft), whereas the minimum safe altitude for the surrounding terrain was 4,620 m (15,160 ft).^[1] Knowing that the aircraft was on collision course with mountainous terrain and having the right to ignore the ATC in this situation, according to the Soviet flight regulations, the crew chose to make a turn instead, continuing their descent to 600 m (2,000 ft).^[1] Having informed ATC of their situation, the crew received a ground proximity warning. Instead of making an urgent climb, the crew delayed any attempt to climb until 1–2 seconds before impact.^[1]

The aircraft crashed into Dolan Mountain, at an altitude of 690 m (2,260 ft), 30 km (19 mi; 16 nmi) from Almaty airport, disintegrating and catching fire.^[2] At the time of the accident, there was cumulo-nimbus cloud cover at an altitude of 3,000–4,500 m (9,800–14,800 ft) with cloud tops of 7,000–8,000 m (23,000–26,000 ft) and a visibility of 10 km (6.2 mi; 5.4 nmi).^[1]

The crash of Flight 5463 was attributed to the following causes:^[3]-

• Violation of the approved approach scheme to Alma-Ata airport
• Failure of the executive flight manager to monitor the situation
• Violation of the flight operations manual by the crew for following the instructions of the final controller to descend below a safe altitude.

• Aeroflot Flight 5463 at Aviation Safety Network

43°10′8.04″N 76°41′53.16″E / 43.1689000°N 76.6981000°E / 43.1689000; 76.6981000