Ice hockey team of the Soviet Air Forces plane crash

The Sverdlovsk plane crash of 5 January 1950 killed all 19 persons on board, including almost the entire ice hockey team (VVS Moscow) of the Soviet Air Forces – 11 players, as well as a team doctor and a masseur.

The team was on board a twin-engined Lisunov Li-2 transport aircraft, a licensed Soviet-built version of the DC-3, heading to a match against the Dzerzhinets (Chelyabinsk) (Traktor Chelyabinsk) hockey club. Due to poor weather at Chelyabinsk, the flight diverted to Sverdlovsk. The crew attempted four approaches but during the fifth approach to Koltsovo Airport at Sverdlovsk in the Soviet Union's Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, the aircraft crashed near the airport in a heavy snowstorm with strong winds.

Passengers

• Ivan Novikov – wing
• Zdenek Zigmund
• Yuri Tarasov - younger brother of Anatoly Tarasov
• Harijs Mellups – goalkeeper
• Roberts Šūlmanis – forward[3]
• Yuri Zhiburtovich
• Victor Isaev – second goalkeeper, Soviet Airforce Team
• Alexander Moiseev – forward
• Mikhail Alperin – team's doctor
• Alex Galkin – team's masseur
• Boris Bocharnikov – team's coach

Team players Viktor Shuvalov and Vsevolod Bobrov were not on the flight; Bobrov overslept and took the train instead, and Shuvalov was injured.

In memory of the crash victims, a memorial was erected near the common grave in Koltsovo.