Aviaarktika was a Soviet airline which started operations on 1 September 1930 and was absorbed by Aeroflot on 3 January 1960.
History
Aviaarktika was the flying branch of the Department of Polar Aviation of Glavsevmorput. Its first head was Mark Shevelev and it was originally based in Krasnoyarsk. It moved to Moscow in 1932.
Aviarktika established routes along the rivers and lakes of Siberia and Northern Russia; the Ob River with a base at Omsk, on the Irtysh and Yenisei rivers, with a base at Krasnoyarsk, on the Angara near Lake Baikal at Irkutsk, and at Yakutsk on the Lena.
Fleet
Initially Aviaarktika flew the Junkers F.13 floatplane and six Dornier Wal flying boats. By 1933 there were 42 aircraft including Tupolev ANT-4 and ANT-6's.
AVIAARKTIKA Tupolev ANT-4, CCCP-H317, currently located at the Ulyanovsk Aircraft Museum in Ulyanovsk Baratayevka Airport (Central) (UWLL), is the only surviving example of the ANT-4. CCCP-H317 crash-landed in Siberian tundra in 1944 and was recovered 39 years later and restored for the museum.
Accidents and incidents
1930s
12 July 1933 Savoia-Marchetti S.55 CCCP-N11 crashed in the Volga River southwest of Volsk after encountering windshear, killing three of five on board.