The fall of Boeing 737 500 OJSC Airline Tatarstan. A video has appeared of the crash of a passenger Boeing in Kazan. Official Declaration of Causes

On the evening of November 17, 2013, a Boeing 737-500 passenger plane of Tatarstan Airlines, performing regular flight U9363 on the route Moscow (Domodedovo) - Kazan, crashed at the airport during landing. The crash occurred during a missed approach. As a result, 50 people died.

What happened

Transcript of the crew's conversation before the fall:

Co-pilot: Oh, that’s it, here’s the runway below us. No, we're going high.

PIC: We are leaving for the go-around, non-landing position.

Co-pilot: Rustic? Rustic?!

Co-pilot: Where are we going?

After this, an eerie crash is heard and the recording ends. The airliner of Tatarstan Airlines crashed into the ground at a speed of 450 km/h almost at a right angle and caught fire. Those on board had no chance of survival.

As the pilots later explained, the very fact of a missed approach at the airfield in relatively uncomplicated weather conditions could have become a reason for a debriefing of the flight by the airline.

Rumble, screams, fire. The Kazan airport is urgently closed, the relatives of the passengers will learn about what happened in a very short time. There is no hope that anyone survived the plane crash.

The smallest

The youngest passenger on board the crashed Boeing was the 11-year-old stepdaughter of the famous commentator Roman Skvortsov, Dasha. She flew to Kazan with her mother, Ellina Artashina.

Roman met his future wife at the Gagarin Cup final a little more than a year before the plane crash. Long-distance relationships did not frighten the couple: she flew to Moscow, he visited Kazan. At the end of October 2012, we had a magnificent, noisy wedding with 80 guests and moved to Moscow.

The relatives' wives remained in Tatarstan, so Ellina's and Dasha's flights were a regular occurrence. The girl was literally counting down the days until this trip.

Three days - and Kazan.

It’s so fun that you want to cry,” Dasha wrote on her VKontakte page.

Everything is fine with me." We took a photo with my mother on board the Boeing and flew off. The flight from Moscow to Kazan takes about an hour and a half. Roman was waiting for Belochka (as he affectionately called his wife) to announce the landing when a call came from her mother.

For some reason the board does not land for a long time. “I’m worried,” the woman said.

I went online and came across a recording about a plane crash in Kazan and the death of 50 people. The first thought, like most people: “Probably the wrong flight.” As it turned out later, that one.

Even a year after the tragedy, the man said that every day he comes home and out of habit says: “Hello, girls, I’m home.” Skvortsov also said that he would never be able to talk about Ellin and Dasha in the past tense.

Kazan prodigy

Among the passengers who were on board the Boeing was Mstislav Kamashev. In 2000, he became famous throughout Russia. The fact is that then 13-year-old Mstislav entered the Kazan State University at the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, where there was a competition among graduates of five people per place. At the same time, the boy did not look like a nerd at all: he went in for swimming and tennis, loved to play “action-shooting games” and hang out with friends. He graduated from university at the age of 18, went to graduate school, and at the same time worked in a bank.

I feel happy. “I have everything I need,” said Mstislav.

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They worked together at the Kazan Powder Factory. The couple had two children and four grandchildren. When they retired, they took care of their upbringing and loved to spend time in “their outlet” - a small garden near the house. Maria sold what she grew at the market. As acquaintances with the Sibgatullins later said, it was not a matter of profit, but rather a desire to talk with peers.

Famous passenger

After the plane crash, a number of media outlets wrote that additional psychological stress on the crew could have been exerted by one high-ranking passenger, whose presence on board was known to the aircraft commander. Whether this is true or not is now impossible to find out, but the son of the head of the republic, Irek Minnikhanov, was actually on the plane, who was flying from a business trip to visit his pregnant wife.

Three months earlier, on August 16, the wedding of Irek and his beloved, Frenchwoman Antonia Guichard, was widely celebrated in Kazan. The young people met in Switzerland while studying, dated for several years, and then decided to legalize their relationship. They did not like to talk about the details of their personal lives. Friends of the couple recalled that even on business they always tried to travel together.

Instagram" photo of little Adriana, the daughter of her eldest son.

"Everything is fine. We're flying"

The ship's commander, Rustem Salikhov, never complained about problems with the plane. “Everything is fine. We’re flying,” he joked with friends who talked about problems at the airline. Rumors about problems with the carrier's aircraft spread far beyond airports.

Tatarstan".

The pilot's widow, Lily of the Valley, later recalled that a few days before the tragedy, her husband was especially affectionate - he tried to spend 100% of his time with his family. The day before we slept until noon, which is rare in this family. After that, Rustem got dressed and left, saying that he would return soon.

Lily of the Valley learned that there were “some problems” with the flight from a friend. However, she was not aware of the details of what happened. The woman began methodically calling her superiors, colleagues - everyone she knew. At some point, colleagues confirmed that the plane had crashed, but the details were unknown - “Moscow does not provide information.” The woman began to get ready for the airport when her friends called and demanded that she not get behind the wheel - they would take her themselves.

Even when Lily of the Valley talked to the airline management, she was sure that there was a mistake, Rustem was not on board, he did not take off, he changed. Only when she saw who was “in the outfit” did the woman begin to realize the terrible truth.

Causes

Representatives of the International Aviation Committee in 2015 officially announced the causes of the crash. Initially, investigators pursued all versions - from technical malfunction before the terrorist attack. As it turned out, the plane with 50 people crashed due to “systemic deficiencies in the work of the crew, the airline and aviation authorities at all levels.”

General Director of Tatarstan Airlines Aksan Giniyatullin admitted after the disaster that in real life Salikhov never went around.

The PIC had more than 2,500 flight hours on this type of aircraft, of which 1,000 were night flight hours. Co-pilot Viktor Gutsul had 1,900 flight hours on this type of aircraft, more than 900 per night. Weather were not classified as difficult. Well, there were clouds, yes. But the visibility was 5,000 meters, the dry runway, which was also repaired for the Universiade, - in general, the conditions for landing were close to ideal.

Immediately after the crash, the airline began checking all possible levels. Experts identified so many violations by the republican carrier that only one question remained: how could this airline even exist?

Already on December 31, 2013, Tatarstan’s operator’s certificate was canceled, that is, no more airline flights should have been operated.

Soon after, bankruptcy proceedings and the sale of the fleet began. The carrier's representatives sold the last "carcass" (Tu-154) at the price of an expensive foreign car - for 2.8 million rubles. In addition to aircraft there were four engines.

Reference

The Boeing 737 involved in the plane crash, tail number VQ-BBN, first took off on June 18, 1990. The Tatarstan company leased the aircraft in December 2008 from the Greek division of Ansett Worldwide Aviation Services. It was previously operated by companies from France, Uganda, Brazil, Romania and Bulgaria. The aircraft had a flight time of 51,547 hours 25 minutes and made 36,595 landings since the start of operation.

The investigation of the interstate aviation committee into the causes of the plane crash that occurred on November 17, 2013 on the takeoff field of the Kazan airport terminal lasted almost 2 years. This accident is considered the largest in the world during this period. What did you find out during the investigation, what reasons for the plane crash in Kazan were identified, and what conclusions were drawn?

A crashed plane 2 years before the disaster

On Sunday evening 2013, November 17, flight number 363, the final flight from Moscow, landed at Kazan airport. The flight took place on a Tatarstan airliner, on a Boeing 737-500. After the second approach, the aircraft was unable to make a safe landing and at a speed of 450 km per hour vertically entered the ground.

Disaster victims

Those killed in the plane crash in Kazan were 50 people who were on board the airliner, of which forty-four passengers, including two children and 6 crew members:

  • four flight attendants;
  • aircraft commander;
  • second pilot.

After the plane crashed in Kazan, the airport was closed for search, rescue, security and medical activities for 24 hours. And November 18 was declared a Day of Mourning in Tatarstan.

Extinguishing a fire after a plane crash in Kazan

Airplane Boeing 737-500

The airliner was created in 1990 and is equipped with 2 turbofan engines. For more than 18 years, it was operated alternately by six airlines from France, Uganda, and Bulgaria, and at the end of 2008 it was leased by the Tatarstan air carrier. At the time of the crash, the plane had flown more than 51 thousand hours.

Circumstances of the flight and failed landing

The flight took off from Moscow Domodedovo at 18.25 strictly on schedule and headed for Kazan. The weather at the arrival airport at the time of landing was as follows:

  • wind 7 m/s, with gusts up to 10 m;
  • visibility about 10 km;
  • light rain and snow;
  • overcast.

Having made the first circle over the airport, the crew reported to the dispatcher about the incorrect position of the aircraft in relation to the runway and proceeded to the 2nd circle using manual control mode.

Based on the reports from the control center, radio communication after that lasted no more than 16 seconds. The plane began to descend from 700 meters, although according to the rules for a missed approach for landing, the altitude should not exceed 500. According to the decoding of the recordings from the flight recorder, it was established that about forty-five seconds passed from the moment of the go-around until the recording stopped, and the period of the fall took 20 seconds.

Airplane crash trajectory

Kazan Airport

After reconstruction, the airport is equipped with the latest systems for tracking and controlling the takeoff and landing process. Boeing instruments are capable of automatically finding beacon signals, and the on-board control system can direct the ship onto an inclined straight line, along which a safe descent occurs. That is why landing with such a set of instruments is not particularly difficult for pilots, and should have ended safely. Based on the results obtained, the plane crash in Kazan and the causes of its occurrence are interpreted differently.

Preliminary conclusion of the IAC commission

The Interstate Aviation Committee made a preliminary decision that the cause of the Boeing 737 crash at Kazan airport was a systemic failure to comply with flight safety rules on the part of the Federal Air Transport Agency and the Administration air transport Tatarstan, which allowed an untrained crew to control the airliner.

According to the commission's report, due to the failure of the aircraft's on-board systems after a failed first approach using the airport's heading and glide path system, the pilots were forced to begin a repeat approach. Insufficient training of the crew and the disabling of the autopilot system made it impossible to correct the situation and bring the Boeing out of a steep dive - the angle of inclination was about 75 degrees. This one human factor led to the plane colliding with the ground at a speed of more than 450 km per hour.

These conclusions were made back in the spring of 2015, and representatives of the Federal Air Transport Agency previously approved these assumptions. Unexpectedly, the signature on the report was revoked, the ability to listen to the transcript of the voice recorder was classified, and a different opinion arose.

Conclusions of representatives of the Federal Air Transport Agency on the reasons for the crash of the Moscow - Kazan flight

According to the conclusion of representatives of the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency, the plane crash occurred due to the design features of the Boeing 737-500 control system. The main reason was identified as a defect in the development of the elevator and its failure during a difficult landing.

Since August 2014, Boeing specialists and French engine developers for this type of airliner have joined the examination. The materials were simultaneously studied by the US National Transportation Safety Board. The report published later listed all the studies carried out to identify possible problems with the structure and control of the steering wheel:

  • 3-dimensional tomography of the unit;
  • Complete disassembly of hydraulic drives and their elements;
  • Mathematical modeling of the operation of this system;
  • Engineering analysis of the probability of steering lock and many others.

The conclusion was clear - damage to the elevator was not the cause of the crash.

Official Declaration of Causes

Despite the lack of 100% certainty and the disagreement of many experts with the data on the steering wheel failure, at the beginning of November 2015, IAC, under pressure from the Federal Air Transport Agency, unexpectedly suspended certificates for the Boeing 737 model.

This news had a stunning effect, because more than 300 Boeing units are used only by Russian airlines, and 737 models of them are more than two hundred, although there are no more than 100 Tu airliners, and only 21 Il aircraft. The media actively discussed the empty skies and the reduction in civil transport in Russia by almost half.

Results of the decision to suspend the certificate for the Boeing 737

After the publication of the corresponding conclusion, the press service of the Federal Air Transport Agency stated that the decision of the IAC cannot suspend the operation of Boeings, since the committee is not vested with executive power, as federal agency air transport of Russia.

To date, the revocation of the certificate applies only to Boeing 737 airliners registered in Russian Federation. Most air carriers prefer to register aircraft in Ireland and Bermuda. And in the country there were only 6 Boeing 373 units:

  • 2 aircraft belonging to Gazpromavia;
  • 4 aircraft are used by Aurora Airlines in the Far East.

All six aircraft have not yet suspended their operations and operate flights according to a regular schedule to domestic and international destinations.

Among representatives of the society of independent researchers of the plane crash, some well-known critics and journalists, the opinion is often heard that this situation is nothing more than just a confrontation between two organizations. The investigation into the causes of the disaster became a pretext for the reorganization and elimination of the IAC, or a reason for depriving it of its powers and removing it from its activities.

Later, according to the decision of the Prime Minister of Russia, the function of certifying airliners was transferred to the Federal Air Transport Agency, airfields - to the Ministry of Transport, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade will begin to approve engines and propellers for operation.

In contact with

Operation of Boeing 737-500 with registration number VQ-BBN started in France in June 1990. Until 1992, it was part of the French fleet charter airline Euralair, and in 1992-1995 it was operated by Air France. Beginning in 1995, the aircraft operated flights for Uganda Airlines, in Africa, then in South America and Eastern Europe. In 2008, it was acquired by Tatarstan Airlines.

Boeing 737-500

The Boeing 737-500 aircraft is one of the types of the world's most popular series of jets. passenger aircraft Boeing 737. The Boeing 737 family is the most popular jet by passenger plane in its entire history - as of mid-2013, more than 7,600 vehicles were delivered. The Boeing 737 is in such widespread use that on average there are now 1,200 aircraft of this series in the air, and every 5 seconds one Boeing 737 takes off and lands in the world.

The family includes more than ten types aircraft 737 Original (-100/-200 models, produced from 1967 to 1988), 737 Classic (-300, -400, -500 models, produced from 1983 to 2000) and newest generation 737 Next Generation (models -600, -700, -700ER, -800, -900, -900ER, BBJ, BBJ2), which has been in production since 1997.

The 737-500 was introduced in 1987 to meet market demand for a more modern and fuel-efficient version of the 737-300. The model was planned to be used for more long routes with a smaller load, where the operation of the 737-300 seemed uneconomical. The Boeing 737-500 is a version of the 737-300 shortened by 2 meters, with an increased range, and can carry up to 132 passengers. The use of CFM56-3 engines provided significant fuel savings and reduced noise levels.

The 737-500 modification has become the favorite model of the series Russian airlines, such as Nordavia, Russia, Sky Express, Transaero and Yamal. They bought used aircraft to replace outdated Soviet aircraft or to expand their fleet.

Specifications

Crew - 2 pilots

Passenger capacity - from 108 to 132 depending on the interior layout

Length - 31.1 m

Wingspan - 28.9 m

Height - 11.1 m

Fuselage width - 3.76 m

Fuselage height - 4.11 m

Cabin width - 3.54 m

Maximum take-off weight - 60.55 t

Maximum landing weight - 50 t

Weight without fuel - 46.7 t

Takeoff length (standard conditions) - 2470 m

Ceiling - 11300 m

Maximum cruising speed - 795 km/h

Maximum speed - 910 km/h

Flight range with maximum load - 4444 km

Engines manufactured by CFM International

Companies operating 737-500

Over 350 Boeing 737-500 aircraft were produced for civilian purposes. Aircraft of this model are operated by the following airlines: Aerocontractors, Aerolineas Argentinas, AeroSvit, Aerovista, Air Busan, Air Do, Air Mediterranee, Air Namibia, Air Next, Air Nippon, Air North, Air Onix, AirBaltic, Astraeus, Batavia Air, Belavia - Belarusian Airlines, Blue Air, Egyptair, Estonian Air, Express Air, Garuda Indonesia Airways, Georgian Airways, Jetairfly, Kyrgyzstan, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, MAT Airways, Mauritania Airlines International, Merpati Nusantara, Royal Air Maroc, Rwandair, SAS - Scandinavian Airlines, SAS Norge, SCAT , Small Planet Airlines, Smart Wings, Solyom - Hungarian Airways, Southwest Airlines, Sriwijaya Airlines, Tajik Air, Tunisair, Ukraine International Airlines, United Airlines, Zambezi Airlines, Aurora, Donavia, Nordavia -regional airlines, Orenburg Airlines, Tatarstan, Transaero, Utair, Yamal.

The conclusions of the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) about the causes of the Sunday crash of the Tatarstan Airlines Boeing 737 turned out to be shocking. The pilot, as follows from the transcript of the flight recorder, turned off the autopilot and sent the plane into a dive. Such actions of the pilot, according to experts, can only be explained by psychologists.

Yesterday, IAC published the first results of decoding the parametric recorder of a Boeing 737-500 that crashed during an attempt to land at Kazan airport. As follows from the committee's message, the crew was unable to complete the landing approach according to the established procedure.

Participants in the investigation explained that landing at the airport of the capital of Tatarstan, equipped with a modern instrument landing system (ILS), did not present much difficulty for the crew. Boeing instruments are capable of automatically capturing signals from the airport's navigation beacons, and its computer is able to place the aircraft on an inclined straight line, a glide path along which a normal descent occurs, so having received permission to land in Kazan, one of the pilots simply set the autopilot to the appropriate mode.

However, the “standard approach in accordance with the established scheme,” as reported by the IAC, failed. Perhaps, due to a technical failure, the autopilot was unable to position the aircraft exactly along the glide path, or it seemed to the pilots that they were not hitting the calculated point of contact with the runway, but in the end they reported to the controller about the “non-landing position” of the aircraft in space and a go-around .

Having received permission, one of the pilots did not even transfer to takeoff mode engine control levers - given that the flight was in automatic mode, he simply pressed the TOGA (Take Off / Go Around) button, which launched the missed approach program.

However, at that moment an event occurred that predetermined the rapid development of the emergency situation on board. In the IAC report, it is indicated as follows: “one of the two autopilots involved in the landing process was disabled, and the further flight was carried out in manual mode.” Experts explained to Kommersant that in everyday language this means emergency intervention in the control of the aircraft by the pilot’s partner. Taking the helm and thus turning off the autopilot, he began to manually drive the car to the altitude of the circle.

His actions initially corresponded to the planned maneuver. According to IAC, the Boeing engines reached close to takeoff mode, the flaps were moved from the 30° position to the 15° position, and the plane began to climb. However, during the climb, its nose lifted up to the maximum pitch angle for a Boeing 737-500 of 25°. Under such an inclination, the frontal resistance of the machine increased, the operating mode of its engines, which use a counter-flow of air, was disrupted, and the speed of the aircraft began to drop dangerously.

A loss of speed from 150 to 125 knots (from approximately 280 to 230 km/h) threatened to quickly send the Boeing into a tailspin, so the pilot who took control decided to gain it in the usual way - by lowering the nose of the car down. His “control actions with the helm column,” as stated in the IAC report, did lead to “the cessation of climb, the beginning of descent and an increase in indicated speed.” However, the pilot, as they say, overdid it and, instead of the horizontal flight or slight descent prescribed by the instructions in such cases, he put the plane into “an intense dive with a pitch angle that reached minus 75° by the end of the parametric recorder recording.” The report noted that the end of the recording coincided in time with the end of the flight.

It should be noted that Boeing's intense dive lasted for 20 seconds - all this time the airliner, at maximum engine operating mode, rushed to the ground from a 700-meter height and literally stuck into the surface at a speed of more than 450 km/h.

Even the flight recorders, packed in special armored and fireproof containers, could not withstand a blow of such force. At least one of them - a voice one, in which conversations between crew members were supposed to be recorded - has not yet been discovered. In the ruins they found only fragments of the container in which the tape recorder was stored. Moreover, there was no chance of survival for the 50 who were on on board Boeing Human.

The aviation experts interviewed by Kommersant were unable to fully explain the actions of the pilot. In their opinion, so far we can only speak with confidence about the poor professional training of pilots. Boeing commander Rustem Salikhov and his partner Viktor Gutsul, as Kommersant already reported, worked most of their lives as a navigator and flight engineer, respectively, and became pilots only a few years ago. According to Kommersant's sources, experts are now studying the medical records of the deceased pilots and the results of psychological tests that they regularly underwent. In any case, experts are convinced that only a person in a state of uncontrollable panic or, conversely, in a stupor could not recognize the fatal dive that lasted for twenty seconds. However, only doctors can give accurate answers to these questions.

Tragedy in Kazan. Secrets and reality. Reflections of a local journalist

Several days have passed since the terrible tragedy that occurred in Kazan. I confess that it is very unpleasant, insulting and painful for me to see the name of my hometown. It’s even worse to see the name of an airline that caused a tragedy; it’s high time to ban the use of state names and symbols for commercial purposes. So as not to play on the patriotism of people who make their choice in favor of one or another service provider.

Now it is no longer possible to conduct a so-called journalistic investigation, so I decided to call the article “journalistic reasoning.” The media law, Article 47, clearly explains the rights of a journalist. The seventh paragraph states that the journalist has the right: to visit specially protected places of natural disasters, accidents and catastrophes, riots and mass gatherings of citizens, as well as areas where a state of emergency has been declared; attend rallies and demonstrations. I understand that the airport is a sensitive facility, but after the plane crashed there, it ceased to be a sensitive facility - our international pier turned into a disaster site. Journalists who arrived at the scene of the tragedy a few minutes later were kept several hundred meters from the “crater.” Therefore, there is a violation of federal law. Representatives of various special services, who came out to the press every 15 minutes, could not say anything sensible - after asking them questions, they immediately ran away like children.

Later, there began an open pitting of relatives and friends of the victims against journalists under the pretext: “They need a sensation and they want to remove the bones of the victims”... Agree, by putting the press and relatives of the victims in the same room, only one effect could be achieved. As a result, we get an “accidentally” lost part of the flight recorder and many other mysteries shrouded in darkness. By the evening of the next day, the remains of the plane had completely disappeared from the runway, and they were removed from the territory on ordinary dump trucks. The bodies of the dead are loaded into a regular refrigerated truck at lunchtime and sent to the morgue. What kind of investigation can be carried out here and why are tracks covered so quickly?

At the end of the summer, I had to personally deal with the negligence of another air carrier operating in our region. Then my home airline forgot me in a foreign country, closing check-in ahead of schedule. Naturally, when I got to Kazan, I began to understand the situation and came across a lot of similar complaints. Former employees told me that the Tatarstan airline was bought by the Ak Bars Aero company for debts, and now everyone is sitting without wages, and the planes are in need of repairs. The workers themselves have not yet decided which of these airlines they belong to. Then I drew a parallel with the negligence that led the motor ship "Bulgaria" to death. The airline reacted negatively to such a comparison, but I compared it in theory, and they proved my words in practice. Moreover, a little before the Kazan tragedy, they detained people in Sochi for several days due to a plane breakdown, and then announced that a crow crashed into them. Even then I noted that lying is not good, and you can invite trouble.

Now it’s also unclear to me whose plane crashed in Kazan? Tatarstan Airlines or Ak Bars Aero? There are no documentary doubts - of course, “Tatarstan”. But one fact makes me doubt it. The Tatarstan Airlines website does not list a Bombardier aircraft, but it was the one that was supposed to fly instead of the ill-fated Boeing. But the Ak Bars Aero company actually has a Bombardier in its fleet. This explains the small workload of the large Boeing - the Bombardier can accommodate exactly 50 people. I would like to emphasize that Ak Bars Aero is the official carrier of government officials of the Republic of Tatarstan, this explains the presence of several important people on board.

They talk about the pilots' mistake, but at the same time they hide from us the exact location of the crash and other important facts. Why were recordings from the recorders of the crashed plane on which the President of Poland was flying officially posted on the Internet, but in Tatarstan everything disappeared into obscurity? Why does one airline cover up for another and replace planes? Why is eyewitness testimony not taken into account? I know that there were such people in a closed area, and they saw how the plane’s engine sparked before landing, after which the ship “pecked” its nose and exploded. During conversations with airport terminal employees, it was found out that runway not put into operation and not equipped properly. I still have many such “whys”, but apparently I will never have answers to them. This is one of those cases when “the authorities can’t.” And for some reason the lower classes still want and allow themselves to be mocked, taking lies and hypocrisy for granted.

 

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