Crash of Russian Tu 154 version

The priority versions of the Tu-154 plane crash are a technical malfunction of the aircraft and pilot error. The version of the terrorist attack is not the main one, said Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov

Candles on the Sochi embankment in memory of those killed in the crash of the Tu-154 plane of the Russian Ministry of Defense (Photo: Artur Lebedev/TASS)

The main reasons for the fall of the Tu-154 may be technical condition aircraft or pilot error. Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov stated this at a briefing, RIA Novosti reports.

The minister heads the government commission created in connection with the aircraft crash. According to him, the version of a terrorist attack on board the Tu-154 that crashed in Sochi is not among the priorities.

The head of the Ministry of Transport said that because of the plane crash, security measures at civil airports and airfields under departmental use will not be strengthened.

“We now do not see the advisability of establishing any special additional measures in connection with this disaster, both in aviation and transport, that is, in anti-terrorism security,” Sokolov said.

The minister emphasized that the purpose of the government commission’s work is not to find out the causes of the disaster; this is being done by the investigation and a special technical commission under the Ministry of Defense. Sokolov said that he would report the first results of the government commission's inspection to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Monday.

​ Versions of the crash of the airliner have been called before. An Interfax source in the emergency services reported the day before that the main version of the plane crash was. However, later the head of the flight safety service of the Russian Armed Forces, Sergei Baynetov, stated that. Specialists carried out routine maintenance on aircraft

in September this year. Interfax's interlocutor argued that the version of pilot error is “unlikely.” They, he said, had “extensive management experience aircraft

The version of a terrorist attack on board the Tu-154 is also being considered, Fontanka reported, citing a source in the Ministry of Defense. At the same time, the publication’s interlocutor clarified that this is a standard check that is carried out in such cases. At the Public Relations Center of the FSB of Russia, RBC could neither confirm nor deny information about a possible terrorist attack.

Tu-154 in Sochi. These are a technical malfunction of the aircraft, pilot error, foreign objects entering the engine and low-quality fuel.

Poor quality fuel

Experts believe that if such a scenario were to develop, sequential engine failure would occur. The plane would not have fallen so quickly.

In addition, test pilot, Honored Pilot of Russia, general director and co-owner of Spark+ Airlines CJSC Vadim Bazykin believes that the Ministry of Defense plane flew from Chkalovsk to Sochi, and it still had fuel in its tanks. However, the expert did not completely abandon this version. “At airports there is now very serious control. This version is unlikely, but, definitely, it should be considered,” RT quotes the specialist.

Foreign objects entering the engine

Vadim Bazykin noted that cases of birds getting into one of the Tu-154 engines have already been recorded in the past. But not everything is so simple. So, if this happened, the remaining two engines would have to take the load. In this regard, the expert considers this version unlikely.

Special correspondent of the Aviapanorama magazine Evgeniy Matveev also agrees with him. He stated that if one engine failed, such a sharp fall of the plane as in the case of the Tu-154 could not have occurred.

Piloting error

Experts are of the opinion that this is most likely not a pilot error, but a situation that did not allow the pilots to react quickly enough. Although, of course, one cannot ignore human factor.

“Yes, this is not the latest generation technology; it is controlled by pilots, not computers, as it is now, when the human factor is excluded,” Bazykin believes. Let us note that the commander of the Tu-154, Roman Volkov, was a highly qualified professional. The total flight time of the First Class Pilot was three thousand hours.

Technical problem

Honored Pilot of Russia Vadim Bazykin noted that the Tu-154 is not equipped with displays installed in the latest generation aircraft. They promptly provide the necessary information about the state of the aircraft.

According to the specialist, the issue could have been a malfunction, which the crew did not pay attention to at first and decided not to report to dispatchers. “Since they started to turn around, it means they were struggling with something, but did not take it as something serious and did not transmit information to the ground,” the pilot suggested.

Non-synchronous wing mechanization

In addition to the official ones, there are also speculative versions considered by experts. However, they also have a logical basis.

Putting forward his own version, test pilot and Buran pilot Magomed Tolboev said that “a possible cause of the crash could have been non-synchronized wing mechanization.” “When one section of the wing is retracted, but the second is not retracted, we had such a case. But for now we cannot say anything,” he emphasized.

Airplane overload

Another version of the plane crash was that the plane was overloaded. “Evidence statements and other objective data obtained during the investigation indicate that the aircraft was unable to gain altitude for some reason - possibly overload and technical malfunction- crashed into the sea,” Interfax quotes a source familiar with the situation. Eyewitnesses said that the plane flew low for an unusually long time without gaining altitude.

Terrorist attack or sabotage

One of the possible versions of the disaster was called a terrorist attack. However, according to the results of the preliminary investigation, no signs of a terrorist attack or sabotage were found on board the plane that crashed in the Black Sea. According to the FSB, the TU-154 did not transport military or dual-use cargo.

“I have only one doubt about the terrorist attack: the plane should not have ended up in Sochi, refueling was planned in Mozdok, and therefore it is unlikely that at Adler airport someone could have purposefully brought explosives onto this particular board,” quotes one of the active pilots of a major Russian airline"Moscow's comsomolets". He suggested that someone could easily ask to give a small “package” to a friend, relative or acquaintance in Khmeimim.

“The rapid destruction of an aircraft cannot be caused by simple structural fatigue.”

Experts and pilots continue to discuss the possible causes of the Tu-154 crash over the Black Sea, based on information that appears in the media and is heard from officials at the scene of the tragedy. So far, three main versions remain in the works: piloting error, technical malfunction and terrorist attack. However, as stated by the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov, none of the versions of what happened has yet received any clear development. At the same time, he noted that the version of the terrorist attack is “far from being in the forefront.”

One of the current pilots of a major Russian airline shared his thoughts on this matter with MK:

Does the investigation already have any examination results? As far as I know, the issue has been resolved only regarding fuel. Investigators have no complaints against him. As for everything else, it’s a complete fog.

But let's think together. If we talk about errors in piloting technology, then if something like that had happened, in any case the crew would have at least had time to say something, to somehow warn. And here - complete silence. Usually, if the crew does not have time to broadcast anything, it is either a terrorist attack or the destruction of the structure.

At first there was information that the plane disappeared approximately 7 minutes into the flight. Now they are talking about two minutes. This is confirmed by radio traffic data. Let me explain: there is a standard procedure when during takeoff the crew is in contact with the tower, and immediately after takeoff they are transferred to communication with the circle. So, based on radio traffic data, we can say that the moment of the disaster is the very time when the crew switched from communication with the tower to communication with the circle. And at that moment they could no longer contact the crew. And this is just about two minutes from the moment the takeoff begins. Precisely because everything happened so quickly, we can assume that this was either the destruction of the structure or, after all, a terrorist attack.

At the same time, the design of the Tu-154 is quite rigid; all its systems are redundant many times over. If it had fallen apart on impact with the water, the fuselage could have split into two or three parts, but it is unlikely that there would have been a large number of fragments, which turned out to be small and carried away by the current for tens of kilometers.

It is also noteworthy that already at the very first moment after the tragedy they immediately spoke about the scattering of fragments of the structure from 1.5 to 8 km, which is also surprising. Usually, if there is a large scatter of fragments, this is evidence that the plane has begun to fall apart in the air.

But such rapid destruction cannot be caused by simple structural fatigue. If the destruction in the air is not explosive in nature, then the plane will simply fall and remain in one place. But when there are a lot of fragments and they are scattered over a large area, we can definitely talk about an explosion.

Regarding the terrorist attack, I have only one doubt: the plane should not have ended up in Sochi, refueling was planned in Mozdok, and therefore it is unlikely that at Adler airport someone could have purposefully brought explosives onto this particular board.

Believe me, I was a military pilot in the past: someone could easily ask you to hand over a small “package” to a friend, relative, or acquaintance in Khmeimim. Unfortunately, not a single airfield or airport in our country is insured against this. Special control, when passengers are stripped down to their socks, is the prerogative of only large metropolitan airports.

Familiar pilots from Sochi just told me about this: Minister of Transport Sokolov allegedly announced that the Tu-154 flaps were not retracted synchronously. But we pilots immediately reject this version, since this plane has a tracking system. If the flaps begin to retract uncoordinated - one faster, the other slower - the brake immediately comes into force, which stops the movement of the flaps altogether and the working flap adjusts to the angle at which the faulty one is released. That is, the tracking system does not allow the aircraft to roll over due to desynchronization either when extending or when retracting the flaps. So this assumption of Mr. Sokolov cannot be considered serious; he himself is not a pilot, but simply a minister.

But we, pilots, remember well that all the recent cases of plane crashes, when the crews did not have time to report anything to the ground, were always terrorist attacks.

We also talked about how the situation on board could have developed with Major General of Aviation, Honored Pilot of the Russian Federation Vladimir Popov and Honored Pilot of the Russian Federation, former flight director of Vnukovo Airlines Yuri Sytnik.

- Previously, there was a version that the Tu-154 could have crashed due to low-quality fuel.

Based on indirect evidence, different options can be considered. If there was a refueling, the question immediately arises: how high quality was the fuel? – says Vladimir Popov. - This could affect performance fuel system. The Tu-154 has three engines. If all three failed at the same time, this is one of the indirect signs pointing to this version. Because the fuel automatic system fails at the same time only in the presence of substandard fuel.

Second, something could also happen to the controls. The Tu-154 has a booster aircraft control system. The hydraulic power elements are located in the rod control system, and you directly control only part of this rod, where you switch certain hydraulic system valves, and they then transmit this force further.

- Could the refusal have been gradual or did everything happen quickly enough?

Everything could happen in a very limited time, within 20-30 seconds.

- Did the crew manage to understand what happened?

I, too, have been in emergency situations; pilots at that time have no time to think about anything extraneous. The crew didn’t even have time to press the “sos” button. In the cockpit there is a commander, right pilot, navigator, flight engineer and on-board technician. One of them could provide information. But this did not happen.

It must be taken into account that the workload during takeoff is enormous. A liftoff occurs, the landing gear, flaps, and engine speed are retracted, the vertical climb speed is adjusted... The pilot changes course. In Adler, a turn 30 degrees to the right is performed to clear the spine of the runway. There, after all, takeoff and landing are performed over the sea. The pilots are very busy at this time; the crew members, purely physically, might not have time to give some information.

The navigation and flight control devices that determine the aircraft’s position in the air could be delayed or show some inaccuracies. Which could have made the situation worse. At an altitude of 400 meters they entered the clouds. Let them now say that the cloudiness was not 10 points. But we must take into account what happened dark time days, the horizon is not visible. The pilot cannot visually identify the aircraft's position in space. All that remains is to monitor the devices. Where is the guarantee that the navigation system devices worked properly?

Now we need to lift the “black” boxes. The picture will be restored in sufficient detail, because the tester records several hundred parameters, this is not only speed, altitude, overload, but also the deflection of the steering wheel - at what second, by how many degrees. What speed was it, what was the engine temperature, what pressure was the booster system working with.

Honored Pilot of the Russian Federation Yuri Mikhailovich Sytnik has his own version of what happened.

The plane crashed into the sea shortly after takeoff. There could have been a collision with some object - a bird or an unmanned vehicle aircraft- drone. I also do not rule out an explosion on board. When the situation develops within 10 - 15 seconds, one of the crew members manages to press the exit to external communication. Even if he does not give a message, some commands and shouts can be heard on the air, but here there is silence... Either the crew thought that he could handle it, and did not want to go on air ahead of time, or could no longer speak.

When an aircraft system fails, the crew usually contacts, requests a reverse landing, or requests a turn. None of this happened here, which means something extraordinary happened.

Therefore, I will say that some kind of non-sheathed device could explode in the cockpit, blinding the crew...

- It was a military aircraft. Are any civilian specialists allowed to visit him during refueling?

Adler is very good airport, the first person of the state flies there, the top leadership of the country sits down. There is a very good security service there, perfected down to the minute - the work of the special services and maintenance services is scheduled. Not very many people could approach this plane. They could change the water, clean the interior, clean the toilets. Customs officers approached as passengers were flying abroad. There are cameras everywhere now, everything is being recorded. The intelligence services, I think, are already looking through all the records. I think that the “black” boxes will soon be found, and in about five days we will know the causes of the disaster.

On the morning of December 25, a Tu-154 plane of the Russian Ministry of Defense, which was heading from Sochi to the Khmeimim base in Syria, crashed in the Black Sea. There were 92 people on board the plane, among them were artists from the Alexandrov Song and Dance Ensemble, journalists from Channel One, NTV and Zvezda, and philanthropist Elizaveta Glinka. All of them most likely died.

The Ministry of Defense plane was heading to the Russian airbase in Syrian Latakia. He took off from the Chkalovsky airport near Moscow at 01.38 Moscow time on December 25. The airport duty officer told RBC that “everything was checked” on the plane before takeoff. In the morning he landed at Sochi airport in Adler to refuel. At 05.25 Moscow time, the plane took off again, but disappeared from radar two minutes later.

The official cause of the disaster has not yet been announced. Among the most discussed versions are a technical malfunction of the aircraft, pilot error, sudden interference and a terrorist attack.

Aircraft technical malfunction

An Interfax source in the emergency services stated that the version of “technical malfunction” is the priority. The service life of the aircraft is cited in favor of this cause of the disaster: the crashed Tu-154 was produced in 1983, its total flight time was 6689 hours. The flight safety service of the Armed Forces said that the crashed airliner was technically sound. The last time it was repaired was in December 2014; in September of the same year, the aircraft underwent scheduled maintenance.

Since 2013, production of aircraft of this model, which began operation in the 1960s of the last century, has been discontinued. Over the entire history of the Tu-154, more than three thousand people died in accidents on this particular modification. At the same time, experts interviewed by Dozhd call the Tu-154 one of the most reliable aircraft.

RIA News

It’s not for nothing that the Tu-154 has been used by aviation for so long, says Air Force Major and instructor pilot Andrei Krasnoperov. According to him, an aircraft of this modification, in the event of a technical malfunction, can glide and land along the coastline, even with the engines not running. The pilot is sure that the plane broke up in the air, otherwise the pilot would have contacted the ground and turned on the distress signal.

In the same time aviation expert Vladimir Kormuzov calls the 30-year-old Tu-154 “morally obsolete”: in civil aviation These aircraft are practically no longer used; they are operated mainly by government agencies. And they have “very little flying time” - the crashed plane flew 26 hours a month, adds Kormuzov. With such passive operation as this aircraft, the age of the aircraft practically does not matter, notes former Deputy Minister of Civil Aviation of the USSR Oleg Smirnov. According to him, the main task commission - to find out how carefully the plane was monitored.

Piloting error

As one of the versions, the investigation is considering a pilot error. The first two minutes after takeoff is one of the most critical stages of the flight, says pilot Andrei Lamanov, who in 2010 urgently landed a Tu-154 at an abandoned airfield in the city of Izhma, the aircraft is unbalanced, and pilots must constantly react. According to him, if the crew was not technically prepared, such a disaster could occur. At the same time, as Krasnoperov notes, it is not a problem for experienced military pilots to perform emergency landing on the water surface in case of imbalance and send a distress signal.

The crashed plane was flown by pilot first class Roman Volkov, who served in the 223rd flight squad Ministry of Defense, which is based at the Chkalovsky airfield. He was a first-class pilot and had flown more than three thousand hours, the military department said in an official statement. The flight safety service of the Armed Forces said that the aircraft commander had repeatedly flown along a given route. The Tu-154 navigator, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Petukhov, participated in the rescue of the “dancing airliner” in April 2011, Rambler News Service reports. Then a plane of the same model landed at Chkalovsky airport with a faulty control system. For this, he and his colleagues were awarded the Order of Courage.

Pilots call Sochi airport “difficult” - takeoff is complicated by the fact that clouds, icing, and thunderstorms often occur over the sea. According to Roshydromet, on Sunday morning in the area of ​​Adler airport there were normal weather conditions, good visibility and light wind.

In 2006, a few kilometers from coastline in Sochi, due to a piloting error, the A-320 of the Armenian airline Armavia crashed; in 1972, an Il-18 of the Aeroflot company crashed into the Black Sea near Adler; the cause has not yet been established.

Sudden disturbance

The cause of the disaster is also considered to be a bird getting into the engine - there is an ornithological park near the airport. Flight safety specialist Alexander Romanov calls this version unlikely. “When a bird collides, some partial destruction occurs, even to the point where the windshield breaks. Even if the engines fail, the plane does not fall, but goes into a smooth descent,” says the expert, adding that “the birds could not have played this fatal role.”

Terrorist act

The authorities almost immediately rejected the version of the terrorist attack. A source in the security forces told Interfax that a terrorist attack is not considered among the main causes of the disaster and such a version is practically excluded.

“The plane took off from the Chkalovsky airfield, which is a well-guarded military facility. It is not possible to penetrate there in order to plant an explosive device on board. In turn, the airport in Sochi is a dual-use airport and is heavily guarded. The entry of unauthorized persons or the carrying of unauthorized items by any employee is excluded,” the agency’s interlocutor said.

Military journalist Alexander Golts, however, in a conversation with Dozhd, spoke in support of this version. According to him, the authorities cannot allow a terrorist attack to occur at such a high level. At the same time, the former head of the anti-terrorist unit of the FSB, Alexander Gusak, claims that “any object can be penetrated.” He noted that “everything depends on the preparation and the possible assistance to the infiltrator.”

According to a Fontanka source, the FSB is working on a version of the terrorist attack. According to the publication’s interlocutor, FSB officers are checking everyone who had access to the plane at the Chkalovsky military airport and at Adler airport. Dozhd's source in the Federal Assembly confirmed this information.

Alexander Shnyakin, a consultant to the Federation Council Commission on Defense and Security, is confident that the cause of the plane crash was a terrorist attack, since the Tu-154 was heading to military base"Khmeimim" in Syria. According to him, terrorist groups will soon take responsibility for what happened.

The fuselage of the Ne-154 aircraft that crashed into the Black Sea was discovered by divers. According to unofficial data, the body was found at a depth of 27 meters, one and a half kilometers from the shore.

According to news agencies, some of the dead were wearing life jackets. Now they are deciding how to raise the fuselage to the surface. According to preliminary data, the fuselage is heavily damaged.

Radar image of the crash area Russian plane published by the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Photo obtained using spacecraft"Sentinel". Evgeniy Solovyov will talk about the progress of the search operation in the Black Sea.

The search operation continues for the second day. In fact, every hour new circumstances are discovered that will allow specialists to restore as much as possible the chronology of events and the overall picture of the incident. Representatives of the FSB have already named the first versions of what happened. The assumption of low-quality fuel was eliminated immediately. Several more remain, including improper placement of cargo inside the aircraft. Those who know the technical features of the Tu-154 are inclined towards this option.

Viktor Sazhenin, Honored Pilot of Russia:“There are no technical failures that would tear the plane apart in the air. Neither technical engine failures, nor even fire due to such failures, the aircraft ruptures in the air. As someone who has flown this plane for 8 years, I can say that it is afraid of forward CG. The ensemble was flying there, they had props, if you put them all in the front trunk, then the elevator might not be enough to gain altitude.”

According to members of a special government commission created to investigate the circumstances of the disaster, the location of the black boxes has already been established. According to the head of the Russian Aerospace Forces, Viktor Bondarev, the recorders should not be damaged - it is known that they are located in the fin, and this part of the aircraft, according to experts, suffered the least damage. In addition, today the navigation instruments of one of the ships participating in the search operation for the Tu-154 aircraft that crashed into the Black Sea recorded an object at the bottom resembling the fuselage of an airliner. The version of the terrorist attack is not considered as the main one.

Maxim Sokolov, Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation:“Today the main versions do not include the version of the terrorist attack. Therefore, we assume that the reasons could be the technical condition of the vessel or pilot errors. But this will be decided by the investigation, and the government commission is working with the relatives of the victims.”

Identification of the dead will take place in Moscow at the Forensic Center of the Ministry of Health. The first plane with the bodies of 10 dead had already arrived in the capital in the morning.

Igor Konashenkov, official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense:“At 8:05 a.m. the Il-76 plane military transport aviation The Ministry of Defense delivered 10 bodies and 86 fragments of the dead found at the scene of the plane crash to Moscow. At the Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination of the city of Moscow, specialists from the 111th Main state center Forensic and forensic examinations of the Russian Ministry of Defense began taking genetic samples from relatives for subsequent examination of the remains and identification of the dead.”

The Tu-154 disappeared from radar at 5:27 a.m., 2 minutes after takeoff. The plane landed in Sochi for refueling, which was initially planned in Mozdok. However, the route was changed due to weather conditions, including this circumstance could have caused the tragedy, experts believe and talk about the peculiarities of takeoff and landing from the sea, especially at night, when the pilot sees stars both in the sky and in the sea reflection. You can only trust the instruments here, and the qualifications of the crew are simply excellent.

The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case under the article “Violations of flight rules and preparation for them.” Perhaps the wording will change as soon as the flight recorders are lifted from the bottom and deciphered.

 

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