On the night from Saturday to Sunday. He was supposed to refuel in Mozdok and proceed to military base"Khmeimim" in Syria. Due to weather conditions, the crew decided to refuel at Adler airport. At 5:25 the plane began to take off and within two minutes disappeared from the radar. The pilots did not have time to transmit a distress signal.
Yuri Sytnik, former flight director of Vnukovo Airlines:
The actions of pilots in an emergency are regulated by three special documents. These are “Instructions for interaction and operating technology for crew members”, “Flight Operations Manual” and “Technology for Crew Operations”. There it is strictly, point by point, what to do. Only the aircraft commander has the right to issue a distress signal. Filing a distress signal in abnormal conditions is not a priority action for the crew.
Alexey Bazeev, senior pilot instructor at Region-Avia:
The crew must first take emergency rescue measures. First you have to stabilize the plane and then turn on the transponder. In the event of a fire, the flight manual instructs the commander to first perform an emergency descent and only then sound the distress signal. The same indication can be found in a number of other cases.
The signal toggle switch, or “responder,” is located in the TU-154 on the top panel. It is ergonomically positioned so that the commander can always turn it on quickly. The “emergency” button is located on the panel of the radio communication device (the SO-72M is often used in TU aircraft, but it all depends on the specific aircraft). There is a panel on the device where you can enter a four-digit code - this code is used so that the crew can report, for example, the hijacking of an aircraft or transmit a signal about a breakdown in external communications. In the event of an emergency, the pilot does not have to dial the four-digit code, but simply turn on the “Emergency” toggle switch. The captain could simply press the radio button, which is located “under his finger,” and say three or four words. In this situation, they did not have time to do this either.
How the Tu-154 takes off
During takeoff and climb, there is a lot of activity going on in the cockpit. The flight manual describes in detail the actions of the crew.
The captain gives the command “Set pressure to 760 mmHg.” Art." and can withstand climb. During the climb, the second pilot carries out command radio communications and negotiates with the dispatcher, then takes control. Obviously, it didn't come to that: the plane crashed two minutes after takeoff.
Take-off procedures occur up to an altitude of 1000 meters. A loaded TU-154 takes off at a speed of 20 m/s. Of the two minutes that passed from the start, about a minute was spent moving along the runway. By the time it disappeared from the radar, the plane should have gained about a thousand meters, but taking into account the fall, this altitude is less. Therefore, most likely, the takeoff was not completed. The plane lost speed and fell into the sea.
According to an anonymous source familiar with the rescue operation, some passengers were wearing life jackets, indicating preparations for landing on water. The Russian Ministry of Defense officially denied the information that the passengers were wearing life jackets.
Three classic versions
Barring a terrorist attack, there are three common causes of any plane crash: pilot error, breakdown or bad weather.
Alexey Bazeev, senior pilot instructor of Region-Avia airline:
The problem may be related to the difficult controllability of the TU-154. It's a great airplane, but there's always the human factor. If we put aside speculation, all we can clearly say is that the problem is related to a sudden loss of speed. It's too early to speculate. The cause of the accident could be anything, and until the black boxes are decrypted, it is not possible to find out what happened.
Konstantin Onokhin, Honored Pilot of the Russian Federation:
Overloading the aircraft could have caused a sudden loss of speed. The airliner flew with tools and gifts. Plus, during refueling, most likely, all four tanks were filled. Because in a war zone there are always problems with refueling. The weather conditions in Adler are also difficult. If the wind blows from the mountains during takeoff, it becomes tailwind. When a plane takes off with a tailwind, this creates additional problems for the crew - the speed is regulated not only by the engine, but also by weather conditions. Combined with the overload, the plane might not have enough speed. And then he fell into the sea, and in conditions of poor visibility and a short distance, the pilots might not have time to react to the situation.
What do we know about the pilots and the technical condition of the aircraft?
The TU-154 was built at the Samara Aviakor plant in 1983 for the USSR Ministry of Defense. In 1994, it was leased - first to the Moscow Corsair airline, then to the Tatar Iron Dragonfly.
In 1997, the aircraft was transferred to the 223rd flight detachment of the Russian Air Force, based at the Chkalovsky airfield near Moscow. Most The aircraft was in storage for some time, underwent a major overhaul in 2014, and the next overhaul was planned for 2018. The average flight time per month is 23 hours, totaling 6.6 thousand hours.
Aviation engineer Vadim Lukashevich “Snobu” that the assigned limit for an aircraft of this type is 60 thousand hours, therefore, the TU-154 used up 11% of its resource.
After the crash, the head of the flight safety service of the Russian Armed Forces, Sergei Baynetov, said that “the plane was technically sound.” According to Baynetov, “the last routine maintenance was carried out in September 2016.” The airport duty officer also told RBC that before departure, “everything was checked,” and the plane itself “had flown before.”
The commander of the TU-154 is first class pilot Major Roman Volkov, 35 years old. According to statements by the Ministry of Defense, Volkov has flown to the Khmeimim base more than once. Volkov's total flight time is more than three and a half thousand hours.
The second pilot is captain Alexander Rovensky, 33 years old.
Navigator - Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Petukhov, 55 years old. "Order of Courage" for saving the plane in 2011. During the flight of the plane from Moscow to Samara, due to a malfunction of the on-board systems, the airliner began to sway in the air, but the crew, whose navigator was Petukhov, managed to land the plane safely.
How were the pre-flight checks carried out?
According to the Ministry of Defense, there were 92 people on board the plane, including 8 crew members. A source in the special services told TASS that “the Tu-154 plane took off from the Chkalovsky airfield, where passengers and luggage were carefully searched and checked.” It was not known in advance that the plane would be refueled in Sochi: according to the source, the plane was initially planned to be refueled in Mozdok.
At Adler airport the plane was taken under guard. An intelligence officer explained that “only two border guards and one customs officer boarded the plane [at Adler airport], and only the navigator left the plane to control the refueling.” This information is confirmed by Interfax data.
"During refueling aircraft a gangway was provided, one employee of the Border Service of the FSB of Russia and one employee of the Sochi Customs climbed on board. The crew commander and flight engineer left the aircraft to monitor the refueling,” reports the FSB Central Operations Center.
The TASS source also noted that “no food was served on board, and refueling was carried out by regular personnel.”
A serious check is indirectly evidenced by the fact that one of the passengers was unable to board the flight due to an expired passport. So the option of a terrorist attack does not look convincing.
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 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 NewsIt’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.
At 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 of the commission is 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 detachment of the 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 stated 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. Penetrate there in order to plant it on board explosive device, does not seem possible. 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 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 the Khmeimim military base in Syria. According to him, terrorist groups will soon take responsibility for what happened.
By official version In the crash of the Tu-154 in Sochi on December 25, 2016, an orangutan was at the controls of the plane instead of a human, and it 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.
But the Tu-154 recorders showed that the plane was fully operational. And it also doesn’t work to assume that the pilot began to take off in a dead state in front of other crew members, who were not suicides. And his voice on the recorder is absolutely sober.
However, the plane crashed, allegedly as a result of inexplicable actions by the crew. Or is there still an explanation - but the military leadership is desperately hiding it?
Cunning journalists discovered that the plane may have been heavily overloaded - hence all the consequences. Moreover, it was reloaded not at the Sochi airport in Adler, 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.
But an increase in the angle of climb led to a drop in speed - the aircraft was too heavy and refused to perform this maneuver. Then the pilot, probably already realizing that he had been given some kind of pig in the form of an extra load, gave the helm away from himself in order to stop the climb and thereby gain speed.
This happened at an altitude of 200 meters - and if the plane had remained at this level, even in violation of all the rules, the tragedy might not have happened. But Volkov piloted the car outside its permissible modes - something no one had done before him, since overloaded flights are strictly prohibited. And how the plane behaved under these conditions is difficult to imagine. In addition, it is possible that that extra cargo, being poorly secured, also disrupted the alignment of the aircraft during takeoff.
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 aircraft of equal power...
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.
And what exactly - you can guess anything here: boxes of vodka, shells, gold bars, Sobyanin tiles... And why they decided to send it not by cargo, but by passenger flight - there could also be any reasons. From sloppiness for the failure to send combat cargo, which they decided to cover up gradually - to the most criminal schemes for the export of precious metals or other contraband.
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 Syrian Khmeimim (destination) and back on our own fuel. And the fact that the ship’s commander agreed in Adler to these 35.6 tons of fuel speaks in favor of the fact that he still did not know the real magnitude of the overload. If he were to fly alone, he could still indulge in the dashing daring that Chkalov himself initiated in our aviation. But behind Volkov there was his own crew of 7 people, and another 84 passengers, including artists from the Alexandrov ensemble!
The fact that the Ministry of Defense in this matter is not just obfuscating, but completely hiding the truth is evidenced by such facts.
1. Shoigu’s version of “a violation of the commander’s spatial orientation (situational awareness), which led to erroneous actions with the aircraft controls” does not stand up to criticism. For any pilot, not only with 4,000 hours of flight time, like Volkov, but also with ten times less, takeoff is the simplest action that does not require any special skills. For example, landing in difficult weather conditions is a completely different matter. The crash during the landing of the same Tu-154 from the Polish delegation near Smolensk is a typical example of the lack of skill and experience of the pilot. But no one has ever crashed while taking off on a working plane.
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 they publish detailed analyzes of all flight accidents - only two hang on the subject of Adler 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 great experience investigation of 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.
That is, either some lieutenant colonel, a complete idiot, loaded something into a passenger plane that should not have been on it. And then a shadow over our entire army, in which there are such idiots on horseback that they can ruin as much as the backbone of Alexandrov’s ensemble with their idiocy.
Or a colonel general, who is at the very top, is involved - and then there is also shame and disgrace: it turns out that after the change from Serdyukov to Shoigu, our army was not cleansed of general outrage?
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
What happened to the TU-154 plane from Sochi: terrorist attack or disaster? Latest news about the investigation into the tragedy over the Black Sea - what is hidden behind the crash of the Ministry of Defense airliner? The published last words of the co-pilot “Flaps! Commander, we are falling! " prompted the public, as well as many experts, to believe that the cause of the plane crash was a crew error. However, professional pilots have a hard time believing this version. What happened on board the fateful RA-85572? Was it shot down from a ground-based MANPADS, could explosives have been placed there?
Due to the fact that a huge number of fakes have appeared in the news in recent years, many Russians quite rightly do not believe in the official versions. And there are fair reasons for this. After all, because of the Russian operation in Syria, a Boeing has already been shot down over the Sinai, it is quite logical that the authorities would not really want people to suffer again.
Albeit not entirely civilian, but still not directly related to military operations.
The results of the investigation have not yet been advertised, which further exaggerates the situation.
Version No. 1: TU-154 was shot down or blown up
This version is supported by the fact that the crew did not report the incident to the ground. At the time of the disaster, he was at an altitude of approximately 250 meters, which is quite enough to be hit by a hand-held man-portable anti-aircraft missile system.
In addition, experts note a large spread of debris. When falling into water, the speed of the fuselage fragments is quickly lost, so a large dispersion radius can only occur during an explosion in the air. Official sources talk about current, but what kind of current can move large parts weighing several tons? And where does the current come from at the resort town?
There are also recordings from CCTV cameras that recorded a flash in the sky at the time of the TU-154 crash. Perhaps, of course, this is the headlights of a capsizing airliner, but then where are the strobe and wing lights? And the headlights on the Tu-154 turn off and retract at 100 meters, the plane took off towards the sea. So it is very doubtful that these were headlights.
Local time of the disaster: 5 hours 27 minutes. It’s dark on the coast - the terrorists could easily fire a missile and then escape.
The possibility of an explosion cannot be ruled out, even though the airport is well checked, but there have already been cases of aircraft being blown up in Russian skies.
Version No. 2: pilot error
The fact that an experienced pilot could confuse the landing gear and flap levers is complete nonsense. Yes, they are located next to each other in the Tu-154, but they have different strokes. The landing gear is retracted immediately after lifting off the runway, with a confident climb. Flaps - after reaching a certain speed. It is doubtful that at an altitude of 250 meters the commander suddenly remembered that the landing gear was not retracted, and the co-pilot pulled the flaps. Not only do you have to be extremely drunk, but you also have to be high on spice.
If the flaps were mixed up with the landing gear immediately after takeoff, then the plane (which was supposedly still overloaded) would not have gained 250 meters, but would have immediately sunk to the ground.
The retraction of the flaps is accompanied by the remark “retracted synchronously”, as is the command to retract the landing gear. That is, all the actions of the pilots in the cockpit are controlled by each other and are duplicated by voice; it is extremely difficult to confuse something.
Another argument - well, just the co-pilot couldn't have made such a stupid mistake. During training, pilots are trained to reflexes for loss of speed, failures, and so on. Interactions within the Tu-154 crew have been so refined over decades of work that it is simply impossible to allow such an obvious failure.
The plane, of course, is very complex, but on takeoff the TU-154 crashed due to an error by the crew at all.
Version No. 3: equipment failure
The fall of the TU-154 in Sochi due to equipment failure is quite likely, since these machines have never been very reliable. Asynchronous flap retraction, for example, could lead to a rollover. Although, again, the crew monitors this, if the flaps are retracted unevenly, they are immediately retracted, the plane stops climbing, and returns to the departure airfield.
The ABSU system or other electronics could have failed, as happened with the “dancing” TU-154 of the Ministry of Defense in Chkalovsky. It was daylight then, the weather was good, and the landing was successful. It’s night now, we’re tired, we might get confused. But then where is the report to the ground?
A more likely version is engine failure under heavy load. But here again, three must fail at once, for example, due to bad fuel. And at the same time there is a chance to land the plane on water, again, there would be a report.
A terrorist attack by TU-154 in December in Sochi is also possible, but not by explosion, but by sabotage. The car itself is from 1983, but with not so much polish.
Everyone is waiting for the full IAC report with the cause of the disaster to be published, but the fact is that society may never know the real factors. And what really happened to the TU-154 plane from Sochi will forever remain in the FSB archives.
Experts from the Ministry of Defense came to the conclusion that the plane crashed over the Black Sea due to a possible error by the co-pilot, who mixed up the control levers, as well as low altitude and overload.
After a complete decoding of the black boxes of the Tu-154 that crashed at the end of December 2016 in the waters of Sochi - parametric and speech- Experts from the Ministry of Defense can actually accurately name the causes of the plane crash.According to experts, the plane with its passengers was destroyed by a combination of several factors:went to last flight overloaded, and the co-pilot Alexander Rovensky on takeoff, perhapsmixed up the landing gear and flap control levers. When the crew noticed the mistake, it was already too late: the heavy Tu-154 simply did not have enough altitude for a rescue maneuver, so itThe tail part of the fuselage hit the water and collapsed.
Heavy and unmanageable
A Life source familiar with the investigation into the causes of the disaster said that the notorious human factor was recognized as the priority version of the Tu-154 crash.
Data from speech and parametric (recording the operation of all components of the aircraft) recorders studied by experts from the Research Center for Operation and Repair of Aircraft of the Ministry of Defense in Lyubertsy say that in the third minute of the flight, when the airliner was at an altitude of 450 meters above sea level, the directional stability system sensors were activated, - a source told Life. - The car began to sharply lose altitude due to problems with the flaps.
According to experts, this could have happened after the co-pilot, 33-year-old captain Alexander Rovensky, instead of retracting the landing gear, retracted the flaps.
Because of this, the plane went into an extreme angle of attack, the crew tried to turn the plane to reach the ground, but did not have time to do this, the Life source added.
As it turned out, the situation was aggravated by the overload of the Tu-154. Everything in the luggage compartment was filled to capacity. The tail section of the plane was pulled down. It was impossible to save the car: there was not enough speed and height.The tail section touched the water first, and then the Tu-154at high speedhit the sea with its right wing and collapsed.
According to a Life source, the emergency situation came as a complete surprise to the crew: in the first seconds, the aircraft commander, 35-year-old Major Roman Volkov, and co-pilot Alexander Rovensky were confused, but quickly pulled themselves together and last seconds tried to save the plane.
DECODING:
Speed 300... (Unintelligible.)
- (Unintelligible.)
I took the racks, commander.
- (Unintelligible.)
Wow, oh my!
(A sharp signal sounds.)
Flaps, bitch, what the fuck!
Altimeter!
Us... (Unintelligible.)
(A signal sounds about a dangerous approach to the ground.)
- (Unintelligible.)
Commander, we are falling!
This is how the experts realized that the plane had problems with the flaps due to the fault of the crew.
The pilots who flew the Tu-154, with whom Life spoke, confirm the conclusions of experts from the Ministry of Defense that the cause of the disaster could have been pilot error.
On the Tupolev, the landing gear and flap retraction handles are located on the visor of the pilot's cabin, between them, above the windshield. You can confuse them, especially if the co-pilot sitting on the right, whose responsibilities include controlling the flaps and landing gear during takeoff, is tired,” Honored Pilot of the Russian Federation Viktor Sazhenin, who himself flew on the Tu-154 for eight years, told Life. - Because of this, the plane went into an extreme angle of attack, hit the water, and its tail fell off.
This version is also considered acceptable by test pilot Hero of Russia Magomed Tolboev.
On the Tu-154 control panel, the flap and landing gear toggle switches are located above the windshield. The flaps are on the left, the landing gear is on the right. The co-pilot, who sits in the seat on the right, is responsible for them. It is possible that the pilot could have mixed up the levers or been distracted by something, so the plane took off with the landing gear extended and the flaps retracted,” Tolboev told Life.
According to Tolboev, one cannot exclude the possibility that after takeoff the crew exceeded the speed and the flap mechanism collapsed, causing the plane to fall to the right, lose speed and crash into the water.
Tragic experience
Another factor in the Tu-154 disaster in Sochi could have been the lack of sufficient knowledge among the ship’s commander and co-pilot on how to act in an extreme situation.
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Disaster with Tu-154 B-2 tail number DoD RA-85572 occurred on December 25, 2016. It was at 5:40 am Moscow time, 1.7 kilometers from the coast of Sochi. The Ministry of Defense plane was flying to Syrian Khmeimim from the Chkalovsky airfield, and in Sochi it was just refueling. There were 92 people on board the liner. A few minutes after lifting off from the runway, the plane disappeared from radar screens.
The crashed airliner was based at the Chkalovsky airfield near Moscow and was part of the Federal State Budgetary Institution "State Airline 223rd Flight Detachment" of the Ministry of Defense, which transports military personnel.
The Tu-154 B-2 modification is designed to carry 180 passengers economy class and was produced from 1978 to 1986. A total of 382 aircraft were built. Since 2012, Russian civil airlines have not operated the Tu-154 B-2.
