Military pensioners stand for Russia and its armed forces. Military pensioners for Russia and its armed forces Versions regarding the crash of Tu 154

On this moment There are four well-known facts in connection with the plane crash of the military Tu-154.

A bomb explosion on board has not been detected,
The aircraft was not hit by an anti-aircraft missile,
There was no message from the crew to the dispatcher about the emergency situation,
The scattering of heavy aircraft structural elements at a large distance from each other.

Most of the information on this accident leads us to the version that there was technical problem, aggravated by poor alignment, and the crew could not cope with all this. But according to this main version, the entire plane should fall into the water and, following the example of other similar accidents, all the heavy parts of the airplane should lie piled up in approximately one place. Naturally, no current can move them from their place. The influence of the flow applies only to the light parts of the structure.

Therefore, based on the experience of world aviation, a large spread of heavy fractions of an aircraft is possible only if it is destroyed in the air. Since the Tu-154 has been in operation for more than 50 years in an amount of more than 1000 copies and not one of them has yet fallen apart in the air on its own, it is obvious that someone helped this disaster happen. The number one candidate for this is the unmanned aerial vehicle. Most likely, the drone landed directly into the gondola with the landing gear already retracted from below, as shown in the figure.

Since there were no explosives on board the drone, no traces of explosives will be found on the wreckage of the plane. Mechanical destruction of the Tu-154 will begin due to the high kinetic energy of the oncoming collision between the aircraft and the drone. Because of this impact, the nacelle along with the landing gear was torn out of the plane of the wing; after this destruction, some of the parts fell into the side engine, as a result of which it was also torn out of its mounting location. Some of the kerosene from the broken pipelines burned for several seconds. Small debris from the damaged wing struck the upper engine and it lost power. Numerous sensors installed in these places were instantly cut off and the aircraft’s information system found itself in an unusual situation. As a result, she began to give incorrect information to the crew.

The left wing, destroyed from below, lost all its kerosene, as a result of which it became much lighter than the right. The center of the plane shifted to the right and the plane began to turn in the same direction with a decrease, since only one engine was actually working. The crew tried to contact the dispatcher, but he did not hear them. Nowadays, radio messages can be jammed using electronic warfare equipment.

From all that has been said, many readers will say: “This is definitely a terrorist attack.” And they will not be entirely right. The French ship, located near Sochi, could easily jam the radio transmission from the aircraft with its equipment, but even if you establish this, they will always say that they had no malicious intent, they just turned on the jammer to practice in neutral waters. And the drone most likely does not have English letters on all its parts, only Arabic numbers, and it will be almost impossible to establish the country of origin, even if its wreckage is found. And the Americans from the control center for their drones, even if you push them against the wall, can always say that their drone, flying past Sochi, simply lost control due to a computer failure and strayed from its route, again in neutral waters. In a word, as our investigators correctly say out loud, this is not a terrorist attack, but they add to themselves that this is a “disgusting” case.

Independent technical expert Yuri Antipov again reviewed the main version of the plane crash and presented arguments that refute it.

Let us remind you that the Tu-154 crash occurred off the coast of Sochi on December 25, 2016. There were 92 people on board the flight to Syria. These are artists of the Alexandrov ensemble, journalists, military personnel, the famous public figure Doctor Lisa and others. Early in the morning after taking off from Sochi airport, the plane crashed into the Black Sea not far from the coast.

According to Antipov, the version of the explosion that he insists on was officially refuted literally right there. However, the expert claims that the airliner could only be torn into tiny fragments by an explosion. This version also proves that only macroscopic fragmentary remains remain of the people who were in the cabin. In addition, the result of the investigation, announced by the Ministry of Defense and reducing the cause of the fall to the loss of orientation of the pilot, has great amount holes.

Antipov again gives the chronology of events. The plane took off from Moscow and landed in the resort city to refuel. The expert recalled that the Tu-154 needs no more than half an hour for this. Instead, the plane remained on the ground for three hours. Passengers were not allowed out.

After this, the crew commander, Roman Volkov, asked the dispatcher to take off from the very beginning of the long runway, citing the fact that the plane was “heavy.” However, Antipov recalls that the plane was unloaded as much as possible. According to official version, there was nothing else on board except the passengers’ belongings and medicines and food.

The expert suggested that it was no coincidence that the commander demanded a takeoff run from the beginning of the runway. Apparently, in Sochi the plane was loaded with valuable cargo, since the work took about three hours. You can simply “throw in” things in an hour.

After takeoff, the plane, and the Tu-154 has a powerful lifting force compared to other airliners, was unable to gain altitude (due to pilot error) and after 70 seconds crashed into the sea from 250 meters. Antipov recalls that the people in the cabin turned into genetic material.

As everyone knows, a forensic medical examination (FME) was carried out to identify the remains on board. According to the EMS data, not all the bodies of passengers after the disaster turned into genetic remains. Some of them, 17 bodies, have been preserved. And these people were sitting in business class, which is located behind the cockpit. How was it determined that the bodies of the business class passengers survived? Very simple. The bodies of the ensemble's leadership and the so-called "VIPs" survived. Contrary to the speculations of the “experts,” the body of the Tu-154 pilot was also preserved in an intact state, the expert explained.

Antipov recalled that according to the main version, the airliner, which fell from such a height at a speed of 500 kilometers, and it was at this speed that the Tu-154 collided with water, was torn into tiny pieces.

The question arises from the fact that one of the wings remained virtually intact. However, Antipov says that there is nothing surprising here. In his opinion, there was an explosion on board, and the wing was damaged from a collision with water. He was not affected by the force of the explosion, the epicenter of which was in the cargo compartment. And after falling from such a height and at such a speed, the plane shatters into pieces.

Antipov sees another proof of the explosion version in the fact that the lower part of the fuselage was ripped open. The break line was exactly on the floor line separating the cargo and passenger compartments.

It was very clearly shown that the internal structure of the walls in the cargo compartment had turned brown and burned from the effects of high temperature. Obvious facts have demonstrated that the aircraft's engines, located at the rear, before plunging into the water of the Black Sea, sucked in fine debris from the explosion on board like vacuum cleaners. And this hot, finely dispersed material from the explosion products penetrated into the design of the engine air intake channels, and even sea water could not wash it off,” Antipov said.

Yuri Antipov also noted one very important detail. After the expert spoke with people familiar with the investigation into the causes of the disaster, it turned out that large quantities of wooden splinters were found in the remains of the victims.

We remember that at the site in Adler, where all the collected debris of the crashed airliner was taken, there was not a single passenger seat. But there should have been more than a hundred of them. Apparently, on this liner heading to Syria, all passengers, including the pilots, sat on wooden stools. But maybe the cargo of the Ministry of Defense, which was loaded for so long, carefully and quietly in Adler, was in wooden boxes? But this version is fantastic. The version with stools is much more realistic,” concluded Yuri Antipov.

News on Notepad-Krasnodar

The results of an investigation into the Tu-154 crash over the Black Sea have appeared on the Internet. According to published information, the cause of the tragedy was crew fatigue.

“The cause of the Tu-154-B-2 crash was a violation of the spatial orientation (situational awareness) of the aircraft commander, which led to his erroneous actions with the aircraft controls, as a result of which the aircraft, during the climb, went into descent and collided with the water surface.” , says the report published in the Telegram channel “Captain Vrungel”. The document notes the “lack of adequate response of the aircraft captain” to the reports of the crew members, as well as sound and light signals.

Several factors contributed to the disturbance in spatial orientation: excessive mental stress, emotional and physiological fatigue, and the captain’s lack of attention distribution skills. The tragedy was also caused by the lack of mandatory control over flight operations by the military command.

"Military transport aviation turned out to be unprepared for the large-scale challenges that the task of organizing a continuous air bridge to Syria posed to it. The problem is complex, the lack of trained crews, the outdated training and control system, the command’s disregard for the crews’ work and rest schedule,” noted the author of the Telegram channel.

The report provides a list of violations committed at the military base during the preparation for the Tu-154 flight. For example, the crew was composed of different squadrons and did not include a radio operator or on-board translator. There were no classes or training for the pilots, and they underwent a medical examination less than two hours before departure.

Experts added that during the refueling of the Tu-154, no passengers were boarded or disembarked, and no additional cargo was placed on board. Problems arose seven seconds into the flight, as the captain "had difficulty determining his position on the airfield due to his understanding of the take-off course."

Let us recall that the crash of the Tu-154 of the Ministry of Defense occurred on December 25, 2016 near Sochi. The plane crashed into the Black Sea. All 92 people on board were killed, including journalists from federal channels, the head of the Fair Aid Foundation, Elizaveta Glinka, as well as the director and artists of the Alexandrov Ensemble.

According to the official version of the Tu-154 crash in Sochi on December 25, 2016, an orangutan was at the controls of the plane instead of a human, and began to jerk the control sticks absurdly, which led to the tragedy.

If we draw a parallel with driving a car, it would look like this: the driver got behind the wheel, drove off, and drove into a snowdrift.

I backed out and crushed three cars nearby. Then he drove forward and crashed as hard as he could into a garbage container, which is where the trip ended.

Conclusion: either the driver was dead drunk - or something happened to the car.

Cunning journalists discovered that the plane may have been heavily overloaded - hence all the consequences. Moreover, it was reloaded not at Sochi’s Adler airport, where it made an intermediate landing, but at the Chkalovsky military airfield near Moscow, from where it took off.

The weight of excess cargo is more than 10 tons. However, at Chkalovsky, according to documents, kerosene was poured into this Tu-1542B-2 10 tons less than a full bowl - 24 tons, as a result, the total weight of the aircraft was 99.6 tons. This exceeded the norm by only 1.6 tons - and therefore was uncritical. The pilot probably noted that the takeoff took place with an effort - but there could be many reasons for this: wind, atmospheric pressure

, air temperature.

But in Adler, where the plane sat down to refuel, this refueling played a fatal role. Fuel was added to the plane's tanks just below the cap - up to 35.6 tons, which is why its take-off weight became more than 10 tons more than permissible.

And if we accept this version with an overload, everything further receives the most logical explanation.

The plane took off from the Adler runway at a speed of 320 km/h - instead of the nominal 270 km/h.

Then the rise occurred at a speed of 10 meters per second - instead of the usual 12–15 m/s.

And 2 seconds after lifting off the ground, the ship’s commander, Roman Volkov, pulled the steering wheel towards himself in order to increase the take-off angle. The fact is that the take-off and landing trajectories are strictly defined at each airfield: landing takes place on a flatter path, take-off - on a steeper one. This is necessary to separate the planes taking off and landing in height - without which they would constantly be in danger of colliding in the air.

As a result, there was a slight panic in the cabin. Pilots began retracting the flaps ahead of schedule to reduce air resistance and thereby gain speed faster.

Here a dangerous approach to the water began, over which the take-off line was. The speed was already decent - 500 km/h, Volkov suddenly took the helm to raise the plane, at the same time starting a turn - apparently, he decided to return to the airfield.

Then the irreparable happened: the plane, in response to the pilot’s actions, did not go up, but crashed into the water, scattering into fragments from the collision with it...

This scenario, based on recorder data, is absolutely consistent - and looks much more plausible than Shoigu’s delusional explanation that the pilot lost spatial orientation and began to descend instead of climbing.

During takeoff, no spatial orientation is required from the pilot at all. There are two main instruments in front of him: an altimeter and a speed indicator, he monitors their readings without being distracted by the views outside the window...…

One might also ask: how did an overloaded plane manage to get off the runway? The answer is simple: there is a so-called screen effect, which significantly increases the lifting force of the wings at a height of up to 15 meters from the ground.

By the way, the concept of ekranoplanes is based on it - half-planes, half-ships, flying within this 15-meter altitude with a much larger load on board than those of equal power

aircraft Well, now the most important questions. First: what kind of cargo was placed in the belly of this Tu - and by whom?

It is clear that these were not light drugs from Dr. Lisa, who was on this flight, and not an armored personnel carrier: a passenger plane does not have a wide port for entry of any equipment. This cargo was apparently heavy and compact enough to enter through the cargo hatch.

Another question: did the pilots know about this left cargo? For sure! This is not a needle in a haystack - but a whole haystack that cannot be hidden from view.

But what exactly was there and what the true weight of it was - the pilots may not have known.

This is an army, where the order of the highest rank is higher than all instructions; and most likely that order was accompanied by some other generous promise - with a hint of all sorts of intrigues in case of refusal. Under the influence of such an explosive mixture, a lot of malfeasance is committed today - when a forced person is faced with a choice: either make decent money - or be left without work and without pants. And the famous Russian, perhaps, at the same time, as they say, has not been canceled! Who ordered? There can also be a big spread here: from some Lieutenant Colonel, Deputy for Armaments -

to Colonel General.

Depending on what kind of cargo was brought onto the plane.

In short, in Chkalovsky the plane is overloaded, but this overload is compensated for by incomplete refueling - and in Adler the tanks are already filled to capacity. Obviously, the calculation was to fly to the Syrian Khmeimim (destination) and back on our own fuel.

2. The decoding of the recorders probably already in the first days after the tragedy gave the full breakdown of what happened. An analogy with the same Polish case in 2010 is appropriate here: then, already on the 5th day, the IAC (Interstate Aviation Committee) issued a comprehensive version of the incident, which was fully confirmed later.

The IAC has been stubbornly silent about the Adler disaster for 6 months now. On his website, where detailed analyzes of all flight accidents are published, there are only two on the subject of Adler’s short messages

that the investigation is ongoing. And another significant passage:

“The resources of research and expert institutions have been mobilized to investigate this disaster. Among them is the Interstate Aviation Committee, which has extensive experience in investigating accidents involving Tu-154 aircraft and the necessary resources to provide assistance in order to speed up the investigation. At the same time, the IAC informs that official comments on this investigation are provided exclusively by the Russian Ministry of Defense.”

That is, read, “we were silenced, sorry.”

3. Naturally, the Minister of Defense in the very first hours, if not minutes after the disaster, found out what cargo was on board the crashed Tu. And the incredibly long search for the wreckage of the plane, which added absolutely nothing to the information from the recorders, suggests that they were looking for that same secret cargo. And not at all the truth, which was clear to the military immediately.

Well, one more question: why do the military, led by their minister, hide this truth so much? And from whom – from Putin himself or from the people?

Well, I very much doubt that they would hide her from Putin: he doesn’t look like a person who can be fooled around his finger. This means they are hiding from the people.

This means that this truth is such that it somehow terribly undermines the prestige of our military.

And the very last thing. Remember, when we watched the film “Chapaev” as children, many of us shouted in the audience: “Chapay, run!” I just as spontaneously want today, when everything has practically become clear with the Adler tragedy, to shout to the pilot Volkov: “Don’t take this cargo! And if you take it, don’t fly higher than 200 meters above the sea!”

After all, if you look at the calm mind, which was not praised by the pilot caught in a storm of circumstances, he had a chance of salvation. Namely: when the plane is overloaded, do not even try to follow the instructions, which oblige you to rise to such and such a height at such and such a distance from the airfield. Violate it to hell, get a reprimand for it, even dismissal - but thereby save your life and the lives of others. That is, fly at a minimum altitude, burning off fuel, and when the weight of the plane drops in an hour and a half, begin lifting.

Another thing that comes to mind again is that if you decide to return to Adler, make a turn not by a standard turn with a side roll, which is what dumped the plane into the sea, but by the so-called “pancake”. That is, with one rudder - when the plane remains in horizontal plane, and the turning radius increases greatly: a maneuver practically not used in modern aviation.

But even this chance, which could save this plane, in the future would still be illusory and deadly. Let’s say Volkov managed to get out of the disastrous situation set by the organizers of his flight. Then next time he or his colleague would be given not 10, but 15 extra tons of some “unspecified” cargo: after all, appetites grow as their satisfaction.

And the tragedy would have happened anyway - not in this case, then in the next, if its causes remained the same.

God grant that as a result of this catastrophe, someone in our armed forces will give someone a hard time, putting an end to the outrages that led to the inevitable outcome.

Alexander Roslyakov Over the Black Sea, it became the 73rd airliner of this family lost as a result of aviation accidents. The total number of deaths in such incidents over 44 years reached 3,263 people. The Yuga.ru portal looked into the history of the aircraft’s operation and remembered the most major disasters

with his participation.

The first flight took place on October 3, 1968. The Tu-154 was mass-produced from 1970 to 1998. From 1998 to 2013, small-scale production of the Tu-154M modification was carried out at the Samara Aviakor plant. A total of 1,026 vehicles were produced. Until the end of the 2000s, it was one of the most common aircraft on medium-range routes in Russia.

The aircraft with tail number RA-85572, which crashed on December 25, 2016 over the Black Sea, was manufactured in 1983 and was a modification of the Tu-154B-2. This modification was produced from 1978 to 1986: an economy class cabin designed for 180 passengers, an improved automatic on-board control system. In 1983, RA-85572 was transferred to the USSR Air Force.

According to some Tu-154 pilots, the aircraft is too complicated for mass production. passenger airliner and requires high qualifications of both flight and ground personnel.

At the end of the 20th century, the aircraft, designed in the 1960s, became obsolete, and airlines began to replace it with modern analogues - the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320.

In 2002, EU countries, due to discrepancies in the level of permissible noise, banned flights of Tu-154s not equipped with special noise-absorbing panels. And since 2006, all Tu-154 flights (except for the Tu-154M modification) in the EU were completely banned. Aircraft of this type were operated mainly in the CIS countries at that time.

In the mid-2000s, the aircraft began to be gradually withdrawn from service. The main reason is the low fuel efficiency of the engines. Since the aircraft was designed in the 1960s, the developers did not face the issue of engine efficiency. The economic crisis of 2008 also contributed to accelerating the process of decommissioning the aircraft. In 2008, the entire Tu-154 fleet was withdrawn by S7, followed by Rossiya and Aeroflot the following year. In 2011, the operation of the Tu-154 was stopped " Ural Airlines" In 2013, airliners of this type were withdrawn from service air park by UTair, the largest operator of the Tu-154 at that time.

In October 2016, the last demonstration flight was made by the Belarusian airline Belavia. The only commercial operator of Tu-154 aircraft in Russia in 2016 was Alrosa Airlines, which has two Tu-154M aircraft in its fleet. According to unconfirmed reports, two Tu-154 aircraft, including the oldest model of this family, produced back in 1976, are owned by North Korean airline Air Koryo.

In February 2013, serial production of the aircraft was discontinued. The last aircraft of the family, produced at the Samara Aviakor plant, was transferred to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

The largest disasters of domestic Tu-154

02/19/1973, Prague, 66 dead

The Tu-154 aircraft performed regular passenger flight from Moscow to Prague, when, while landing, it suddenly went into a rapid descent, not reaching 470 m from the runway, crashed into the ground and collapsed. 66 people out of 100 on board died. This is the first accident in the history of the Tu-154 aircraft. The Czechoslovak commission was unable to establish the causes of the incident, only suggesting that during the approach to land the airliner suddenly encountered a zone of turbulence, which led to a loss of stability. The Soviet commission came to the conclusion that the cause of the disaster was an error by the aircraft commander, who, during landing, accidentally, due to imperfections in the control system, changed the angle of the stabilizer.

07/08/1980, Alma-Ata, 166 dead, 9 wounded on the ground

The plane, flying on the route Almaty - Rostov-on-Don - Simferopol, crashed almost immediately after takeoff. The plane demolished two residential barracks and four residential buildings, injuring nine people on the ground. According to the official version, the disaster occurred due to a sudden atmospheric disturbance that caused a powerful downward air flow (up to 14 m/s) and a strong tailwind (up to 20 m/s) during takeoff, at the time of mechanization removal, at a high take-off weight, in conditions of a high-mountain airfield and high air temperatures. The combination of these factors at a low flight altitude and with a sudden lateral roll, the correction of which briefly distracted the crew, predetermined the fatal outcome of the flight.

11/16/1981, Norilsk, 99 dead

The airliner was completing a passenger flight from Krasnoyarsk and was landing when it lost altitude and landed on a field, not reaching about 500 m from the runway, after which it crashed into a radio beacon embankment and collapsed. 99 people out of 167 on board were killed. According to the commission's conclusion, the cause of the disaster was the loss of longitudinal control of the aircraft at the final stage of landing due to design features airplane. In addition, the crew realized too late that the situation was threatening an accident, and the decision to go around was made untimely.

12/23/1984, Krasnoyarsk, 110 dead

The airliner was supposed to carry out a passenger flight to Irkutsk when an engine failure occurred while climbing. The crew decided to return, but during landing a fire broke out, which destroyed the control systems. The car crashed to the ground 3 km before runway No. 29 and collapsed. The root cause of the disaster was the destruction of the first stage disk of one of the engines, which occurred due to the presence of fatigue cracks. The cracks were caused by a manufacturing defect.

07/10/1985, Uchkuduk, 200 dead

This disaster was the largest in terms of death toll in history. Soviet aviation and Tu-154 aircraft. The airliner performing regular flight on the route Karshi - Ufa - Leningrad, 46 minutes after departure at an altitude of 11 thousand 600 m, it lost speed, fell into a flat tailspin and crashed to the ground.

By official conclusion, this happened under the influence of high non-standard outside air temperature, small angle of attack margin and engine thrust. The crew made a number of deviations from the requirements, lost speed - and could not cope with piloting the aircraft. Widespread unofficial version: Before departure, the crew's rest schedule was disrupted, resulting in the pilots' total waking time of almost 24 hours. And soon after the flight began, the crew fell asleep.

07.12.1995, Khabarovsk region, 98 dead

The Tu-154B-1 airliner of the Khabarovsk united air squad, flying on the route Khabarovsk - Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk - Khabarovsk - Ulan-Ude - Novosibirsk, crashed into Mount Bo-Dzhausa 274 km from Khabarovsk. The cause of the disaster was presumably asymmetrical pumping of fuel from the tanks. The ship's commander mistakenly increased the resulting right roll, and the flight became uncontrollable.

07/04/2001, Irkutsk, 145 dead

While landing at Irkutsk airport, the airliner suddenly fell into a flat tailspin and crashed to the ground. During the landing approach, the crew allowed the aircraft speed to drop below the permissible speed by 10-15 km/h. The autopilot, turned on in altitude maintenance mode, increased the pitch angle as the speed dropped, which led to an even greater loss of speed. Having discovered a dangerous situation, the crew added a mode to the engines, tilted the steering wheel to the left and away from themselves, which led to a rapid increase in vertical speed and an increase in roll to the left. Having lost spatial orientation, the pilot tried to bring the plane out of the roll, but his actions only increased it. The state commission blamed the cause of the disaster on the erroneous actions of the crew.

10/04/2001, Black Sea, 78 dead

The Siberia Airlines Tu-154M airliner was flying on the route Tel Aviv - Novosibirsk, but 1 hour 45 minutes after takeoff it crashed into the Black Sea. According to the conclusion of the Interstate Aviation Committee, the plane was unintentionally shot down by a Ukrainian S-200 anti-aircraft missile launched during Ukrainian military exercises held on the Crimean peninsula. Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexander Kuzmuk apologized for the incident. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma acknowledged Ukraine's responsibility for the incident and dismissed the Minister of Defense.

08/24/2004, Kamensk, 46 dead

The plane took off from Moscow and headed for Sochi. During a flight over the Rostov region, a strong explosion occurred in the tail section of the airliner. The plane lost control and began to fall. The crew tried with all their might to keep the plane in the air, but the uncontrollable airliner crashed to the ground near the village of Glubokoye, Kamensky district Rostov region and completely collapsed. The explosion on the plane was carried out by a suicide bomber. Immediately after the terrorist attacks (on the same day, a Tu-134 plane flying from Moscow to Volgograd exploded), the terrorist organization Islambuli Brigades took responsibility for them. But later Shamil Basayev stated that he prepared the terrorist attacks.

According to Basayev, the terrorists he sent did not blow up the planes, but only hijacked them. Basayev claimed that the planes were shot down by Russian air defense missiles, as the Russian leadership feared that the planes would be sent to any targets in Moscow or St. Petersburg.

08/22/2006, Donetsk, 170 dead

The Russian airliner was carrying out a scheduled passenger flight from Anapa to St. Petersburg, but encountered a severe thunderstorm over the Donetsk region. The crew requested permission from the dispatcher for a higher flight level, but then the airliner lost altitude and three minutes later crashed near the village of Sukhaya Balka in the Konstantinovsky district of the Donetsk region.

“The lack of control over the flight speed and failure to comply with the instructions of the Flight Operations Manual (Flight Operations Manual) to prevent the aircraft from entering stall mode due to unsatisfactory interaction among the crew did not prevent the situation from becoming catastrophic.”, said the final conclusion of the Interstate Aviation Commission.

04/10/2010, Smolensk, 96 dead

Presidential airliner Tu-154M Air Force Poland was carrying out a flight on the Warsaw-Smolensk route, but when landing at the Smolensk-Severny airfield in heavy fog, the airliner collided with trees, capsized, crashed to the ground and was completely destroyed. All 96 people on board were killed, including Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria Kaczynski, as well as well-known Polish politicians, almost all the high military command and public and religious figures. They were heading to Russia on a private visit as a Polish delegation to the mourning events on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. An investigation by the Interstate Aviation Committee found that all systems of the aircraft were operating normally before the collision with the ground; due to fog, visibility at the airfield was below acceptable for landing, of which the crew was notified. The causes of the disaster were cited as the incorrect actions of the aircraft crew and psychological pressure on them.

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