occurred on December 20, 1995. Flight 965 was preparing to take off from Miami Airport. His destination was the city of Cali in Colombia. The flight was slightly delayed due to long passenger check-in times. They received permission to take off half an hour late. But the difficulties did not end there. Due to the high congestion at the airport, the plane was delayed for another two hours.
The captain of the plane was 57-year-old Nicholas Tafuri. He was one of the most experienced American Airlines pilots. By that time he had already flown more than 13,000 hours. He also had good experience flying the Boeing 757. The co-pilot was Don Williams. It was the beginning of the Christmas holiday season, and passengers were getting ready to celebrate the holiday. Most of them were flying home to their relatives.
Passenger: I was flying to Cali with my family. We wanted to get there quickly and see our relatives.
At 2:45 a.m. the plane was flying at an altitude of 11 kilometers. Then, at a signal from Cali Airport, he began to descend. The Boeing 757 was a high-tech aircraft equipped with an on-board computer. Thanks to a special program, the computer can control the flight of the aircraft throughout the entire flight. But it was the pilots’ trust in the computer that turned into a disaster for Flight 965. It was a moonless night. Visibility did not exceed 10 kilometers. The plane was about 100 kilometers from Cali. Its city airport is located at the end of a large gorge. Mountains rise above the gorge on both sides. To reach the landing course, the plane had to sequentially pass a chain of navigation points. These were radio beacons indicating the route. According to the program, the on-board computer was supposed to receive signals and change the direction of the aircraft. Flight 965 was approaching the radio beacon in the city of Tulua. After Tulua it was necessary to begin the descent to the radio beacon in the city of Roseau. And only then land at Cali airport.
The Cali airport air traffic controller was watching the approaching plane. But suddenly a problem arose. Rebels opposed to the Colombian government blew up an air radar. The controllers lost the ability to track the planes. In the absence of radar, the controller was forced to rely on the readings of the instruments in the cockpit.
The controller cleared the plane to land in Cali and told the plane to descend to 5,000 feet. He also asked to be informed when the plane would pass the radio beacon in Tulua. Captain Tafuri thought that he was being given a landing in Cali with a beacon drive at Tulua. However, the dispatcher only asked to inform him about the passage of this place. This was the main mistake.
Dispatcher: I thought the captain's words "as the crow flies" meant that the flight was heading to Cali without any delays. However, I asked the captain to report the plane passing the radio beacon, due to the failure of our radar.
It's a pity, but the plane captain began entering the changed data into the computer. As a result, the intermediate radio beacon in Tulua, which the plane was approaching, was removed from the route map in Cali.
Passenger: I remember how the flight attendants suggested that we fasten our seat belts and raise the seat backs. It became clear that landing would soon take place. All passengers were very pleased.
There were 11 minutes left before the estimated time of arrival. The controller asked if the plane was ready to enter runway 1-9. The original plan was to land on runway 1-0. But it was even better this way. The plane did not need to circle over the city for long. The pilots were happy. They began to descend toward the runway. This made disaster inevitable. The controller requested confirmation of the passage of the Tulua and Roseau radio beacons. The pilots were confused. How could they have missed the Tulua drive? Then events unfolded very quickly. The crew needed to enter into the computer new information about the aircraft's position. The captain asked the controller if they could fly directly to Roseau Drive. He allowed the flight, but once again asked the pilots for the time to pass the Tulua drive. Without radar, the controller could not see where the plane was.
The next moment, Captain Tafuri made another fateful decision. On the computer, when selecting the Roseau beacon, he entered the letter “P” in the search bar. The database showed 10 navigation points starting with this letter. The Roseau radio beacon should have been at the top of the list. But there was a glitch, and the captain changed course to a completely different navigation point. At a speed of 520 km/h, descending by 400 meters per minute, the plane began to sharply change its flight direction. Later the plane crashed in the mountains near Cali.
Dispatcher: It never occurred to me that they deviated from the route. I didn't have any radar data.
As a result, the pilots completely lost control of the situation. They relied on data from instruments, while the plane moved further and further from the desired course. In less than one minute, the airliner turned towards the mountains. The pilots began to realize that they were flying off course. After two minutes, the captain realized that they could not return to the island themselves. old route and decided to move directly to the airport, bypassing the aircraft drives. They did not know that there were already rocks between them and Kali.
Suddenly, the emergency warning system about the dangerous proximity of the ground went off. The pilots immediately began climbing.
Passenger: I felt the plane suddenly go up. It felt like we were being tossed around on high waves.
The plane crashed into a mountain
All the efforts of the pilots did not yield results. With my nose in the air, airplane at high speed crashed into a mountain. At the estimated time, aircraft 965 did not reach the landing strip. Also, contact with him was lost. It seemed he had disappeared without a trace. An announcement appeared on the monitors in the waiting rooms that the flight was delayed. However, soon local residents the town of Bug reported that they heard a strong explosion. It became clear that the plane had crashed.
The first ambulances began to arrive at the rock mass where the plane crashed. 6 hours after the disaster, in the area of one of the mountains, the first wreckage of the plane was discovered. There were no roads there at all. It was an area cut off from civilization. It was very difficult to get there. But there were still living people in the crashed plane.
Passenger: I remember how I came to my senses the next morning. The sun shone brightly. I couldn't understand how I ended up here.
At dawn, a Colombian Air Force helicopter began to survey the disaster area. But every minute of delay could cost someone their life. The victims could not get out of the rubble themselves. Moreover, it was very cold, and the survivors could simply freeze. Finally, after some time, one of the helicopters managed to locate the crash site.
Passenger: When I saw the helicopter, I started waving the blanket, hoping that they would notice us.
After spending 10 hours in the cold mountains, the surviving passengers of Flight 965 were finally rescued.
Passenger: When the helicopter arrived, a rope was dropped from it, and people began to climb down it. I was absolutely happy then.
Rescuers began searching for survivors. The rescue operation lasted 13 hours and was greatly complicated by strong winds and clouds. Of the 163 passengers on Flight 965, only 4 survived.
Meanwhile, specialists took care of the wreckage. They needed to figure out how one of the most advanced airliners could go off course and crash.
Expert: The investigation showed that the plane crashed into the eastern part of the mountain slope. This happened after the crew decided to make a U-turn.
The bulk of the debris was located on a small high mountain plateau. The disaster shocked many. It was a modern plane. It belonged to one of the best airlines in the world. No one could understand how this could happen. The investigators focused all their attention on the actions of the flight crew. Fortunately, the black boxes were quickly discovered. It was they who could reveal the mystery of the death of board 965.
Investigator: The fact is that one mistake made by the pilot cannot yet cause a disaster. There must be a series of errors.
As the plane approached Cali, the controller showed the pilots exactly where to land. Fact of change runway forced pilots to make hasty decisions. The flight crew had to quickly revise the route diagram and re-program the on-board computer.
Investigator: In any case, when a person is in a hurry, he can accidentally make a fatal mistake. The Roseau Drive was marked on the map. Therefore, the captain entered the letter “P” as a key. This automatically meant changing the route to the corresponding lighthouse. But there was a glitch in the program. As a result, the plane flew on a completely different course.
The map, which is located on the pilot's instrument panel, indicated the chosen course of movement. According to him, the plane began to move to the left. Unfortunately, the co-pilot did not pay attention to the captain's mistake. He was too busy preparing the plane for landing. As a result, the pilots directed the plane to the crash site. They have lost control of the situation. The plane was flying on autopilot, according to the program embedded in it. Only a few minutes later the pilots decided to return to their previous course. However, instead of gaining a safe altitude, they continued to descend. When the signal sounded that the ground was dangerously close, the co-pilot managed to turn off the autopilot. But the landing flaps remained extended. According to experts, with the flaps retracted, the plane would have time to gain a safe altitude and fly over the mountain.
According to the classification, this accident falls into the category of controlled accidents. This means that at the time of the crash, the plane was fully operational and under control of the crew, who actually flew it up the mountain. Both pilots were highly skilled pilots, but they faced problems that they simply did not have enough time to solve.
In accordance with the court's decision, responsibility for the disaster was placed on the pilots, who made a number of errors during the landing approach. The accident served as a serious lesson for all pilots. She also reminded that it is important to calculate your every step when the lives of other people are in your hands.
Russian airliner Sukhoi SuperJet-100 (SSJ‑100) number 97004, performing the first ever demonstration tour of six Asian countries, May 9, 2012 Salak (Indonesia).
From Jakarta's Halim Perdanakusuma Airport, the plane was scheduled to make two flights lasting half an hour each. The first flight was successful. About 20 minutes after the start of the second flight, at 14.35 local time (11.30 Moscow time), SuperJet.
Contact with the plane was lost when it (Salak) was in West Java, 59 kilometers from the airport.
The emergency beacon of the international COSPAS-SARSAT system of the Sukhoi Superjet-100 aircraft that disappeared from the radars did not respond on any frequency - from splashdown, collision with a hill and on the emergency frequency.
Shortly before losing contact, the plane requested permission to descend from an altitude of 10 thousand feet (about three kilometers) to six thousand (about 1.8 kilometers). He received permission and...
According to observations from space, during the flight of the Russian airliner SSJ-100, the slope of Mount Salak was. The height of the cloud cover exceeded 11 kilometers.
Indonesian aircraft authorities.
However, soon the version about the crash of the liner became the main one. The inactive crater Kawah Ratu, located at an altitude of over two kilometers from sea level on the northern slope of the Salak stratovolcano, was named the most likely place where the plane crashed.
The search operation launched in the area was greatly complicated by rain and darkness.
On May 10, an Indonesian Sukhoi SuperJet‑100 at an altitude of 5,200 feet (1.6 kilometers) above sea level.
SSJ-100, the plane crashed into a gorge, some of the fragments remained on the slope.
Rescuers from the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations discovered a total of over 120 fragments of the aircraft in the crash area of the Russian Sukhoi SuperJet‑100.
In search of the wreckage of the plane and the remains of the victims, Russian rescuers made 50 descents into the gorge and territory.
High quality recording of conversations between the pilots of the crashed Superjet‑100 about the last flight of board 97004 right up to the moment the plane hit the rock.
After analyzing the data, experts came to the conclusion that before the collision with the mountain, all aircraft systems were operating normally.
The Terrain Warning System (TAWS) signaled that the vehicle was approaching the ground before the crash, followed by six hazard warnings.
The crew commander, because he believed that the reason for its operation was a problem with the database.
According to experts, the pilot had 24 seconds after the first signal from the TAWS system to possibly prevent a disaster.
An examination was carried out on the remains of the bodies of both pilots of the Russian airliner.
On December 18, 2012, the official results of the investigation into the disaster were announced Russian plane SSJ‑100 in West Java. Neither the crew of the crashed Russian airliner nor the Indonesian dispatchers allowed direct deviations from the flight rules; the cause of the disaster was a combination of circumstances that were not individually critical.
Russian and Indonesian experts agreed that there were several factors: the actions of the airliner’s crew, their lack of reliable data on the terrain, the inattention and overload of Indonesian dispatchers.
Indonesian air traffic control services, when transferring control to and from Jakarta airport, believed that the plane was flying to another training area, and in front of them was an Indonesian Air Force Su-30. In addition, the Indonesian controller of the Russian airliner SSJ‑100 from the radar screens only 24 minutes after the crash.
The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources
MOSCOW, March 24 – RIA Novosti. Tuesday's incident in the French Alps was the worst air disaster in France since the turn of the century.
The aircraft, which carried 144 passengers and six crew members, belonged to Germanwings, a subsidiary of Lufthansa airlines. The plane was heading from Barcelona to Dusseldorf.
Latest information about Airbus crash A320 —
As French President Francois Hollande said, among the passengers were citizens of Germany, Spain and Turkey, all of them died. French authorities do not rule out all versions of the crash. The crashed plane was produced 25 years ago, and the pilot of the crashed airliner had flown more than 6 thousand hours on this type of aircraft.
It is noteworthy that the crashed A320 was insured by the same company that insured the MH17 airliner shot down in Ukraine last year and the MH370 airliner that disappeared over Indian Ocean. Russian diplomats We don’t yet have information on whether there were Russians on board.
"Black day" for Lufthansa
The crash of an Airbus A320 in a remote area of the French Alps was the worst air disaster in France in the last 15 years - since 2000. A previous, similarly large-scale air disaster was the crash of a Concorde aircraft in the French capital region shortly after takeoff from Charles de Gaulle airport in July 2000. Then the plane crash killed 109 people - passengers and crew members, as well as four people who were on the ground where the aircraft fell.
A Lufthansa spokesman said on Tuesday that the crash of a Germanwings airliner was a "black day" for the group. According to him, at present neither he nor the representative of Dusseldorf Airport can provide any details of the tragedy.
French Interior Minister: hope of finding survivors of the A320 crash is extremely lowPreviously, the head of the gendarmerie of the Provence-Alpes region - Cote d'Azur stated that “someone was seen moving at the crash site.” Media reported that rescuers managed to land a helicopter near the crash site, but failed to locate survivors of the crash.“We cannot report anything yet. We must first collect all the information. Now the information that we have about possible causes and details is being analyzed. I ask for your understanding,” said a representative of the airline.
Germanwings is a German low-cost airline based at Cologne-Bonn Airport and owned by Lufthansa. Germanwings operates flights from the airports of Cologne-Bonn, Stuttgart, Berlin, Hamburg, Dortmund, Düsseldorf. Moscow Vnukovo Airport is served by Germanwings in Russia. According to open data, the company's fleet contains only 58 aircraft, of which 16 are Airbus A320 airliners. The average age of A320 aircraft is 23 years.
The disaster also affected the company's shares - shares of Deutsche Lufthansa AG (the parent company of the Germanwings airline), Airbus Group and Safran (manufacturer of engines for Airbus aircraft) fell in price on the European stock exchange Euronext and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Lufthansa).
By 16.21 Moscow time, Airbus Group shares were losing 1.7% in price, and from the intraday highs (reached before the disaster) to the lows of the day they fell by 4.3%. Safran shares are losing 0.2% in price and fell 2.1% from the day's highs on the news. Deutsche Lufthansa AG securities are losing 1.5% in price, and on the news they fell from the day's highs by 7.6%.
Lufthansa and its subsidiaries are considered one of the safest airlines in the world.
French authorities do not rule out all versions
No version of the crash Airbus aircraft A320 in French Alps ah cannot be ruled out at the current stage of the investigation, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Tuesday.
“At the current stage, we cannot exclude any hypotheses about what happened,” Agence France-Presse quoted Valls as saying. He added that the French Foreign Ministry has opened a crisis center for the families of disaster victims.
The Germanwings plane that crashed in France was manufactured in 1990, according to the website Flightradar24. The airliner (with registration number D-AIPX) made its first flight on November 29, 1990 under the flag of Lufthansa, it was equipped with two CFM56-5A1 engines. At the end of January 2015, the aircraft was transferred to a subsidiary of Germanwings.
As representatives of the Germanwings airline stated at a press conference in Cologne, the pilot of the A320 that crashed in France had flown more than 6 thousand hours on this type of aircraft. Air carrier representatives also indicated that the crashed A320 underwent full maintenance in the summer of 2013.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Berlin, Paris and Madrid have agreed to provide comprehensive assistance in the investigation into the causes of the Airbus A320 crash in the south of France.
“In the past hours, I have spoken with both French President Francois Hollande and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. We agreed on mutual and comprehensive assistance in investigating the causes of the disaster, as well as support for the forces conducting the investigation at the crash site and at the airports.” , Merkel said in a special address on Tuesday. Merkel also said she would visit the site of the plane crash in southern France on Wednesday.
The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations also announced its readiness to assist France in the search operation at the site of the Airbus A320 crash.
The tragedy affected at least five countries
French President Francois Hollande said the passengers included citizens of Germany, Spain and Turkey. According to Hollande, most likely they all died.
The Minister of Transport of the Fifth Republic, Alain Vidali, confirmed that there were no survivors of the Airbus A320 crash in the south of France.
"There are no survivors there. There was a distress signal at 10.47 local time (8.47 Moscow time). It showed that the plane was at an altitude of 5 thousand feet - this is an abnormal situation," Vidali said, adding that the crash occurred shortly after the signals from the plane.
The carrier's representative, Thomas Winkelmann, said at a special press conference in Cologne that there could have been 67 German citizens among the passengers on the Airbus A320.
In turn, the Catalan newspaper Vanguardia reported that on board the crashed plane there was a group of 16 German schoolchildren and four of their teachers who came to Llinars del Vallès (province of Barcelona) on an exchange. They spent nine days in Spain. They were housed in the homes of Spanish students and teachers.
"I think I saw it before it crashed. I saw the plane flying a little lower than usual - that caught my attention," a resident of Meolan-Revel told Europe 1 radio, adding that the plane's altitude was about 4 thousand meters.
Another eyewitness noted that his attention was drawn to the loud noise of a jet engine.
Bernard Bartolini, mayor of Prades-les-Bléons, the nearest settlement to the crash site - stated that it was inaccessible. "From the last house to mountain range(where the crash occurred) — two and a half hours on foot,” he said.
"The Germanwings A320 plane that crashed in France began to sharply lose altitude in the last phase of its flight. According to the service, the plane dropped from almost 40 thousand feet (12 kilometers) to 25 thousand feet (7.6 kilometers). After that, data from the plane stopped proceed," the message says.
Rescuers managed to land a helicopter near the crash site of a Germanwings Airbus A320 in the French Alps, but were unable to locate survivors of the crash, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday. At the same time, as the La Provence newspaper reports, citing a number of sources, rescuers allegedly saw “a body that was moving” at the scene of the tragedy.
As Gilbert Sovan, head of the general council of the Alpes-Haute-Provence department, noted in an interview with the Echos newspaper, “the plane fell into pieces.” According to him, “the largest piece of aircraft debris is the size of a car.”
Insurance Company
It is noteworthy that the Airbus A320 was insured by Allianz, Reuters reports, citing sources familiar with the situation.
Receive official comments from Allianz at this moment failed.
Allianz was also the primary insurer of Malaysia Airlines flights, one of which (MH370) disappeared over the Indian Ocean, and the second (MH17) was shot down over eastern Ukraine in March and July last year, respectively.
In addition, Allianz insured the AirAsia airliner that crashed over the Java Sea in December 2014.
A shocking version of the reasons for the crash of a German plane in the French Alps: the black box data presents a picture that does not fit in the head. Apparently, the co-pilot killed himself and his passengers by deliberately flying the plane uphill.
The version reported today by Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin, whose office is leading the investigation, made me horrified again. An airplane crash is a conscious and deliberate act of the co-pilot.
"You can hear the captain asking the co-pilot to take control of the ship. Then the sound of the door closing. You can hear several calls from the captain to be allowed into the cockpit. This happens using the intercom system - via an interphone, which has a monitor on which you can see him ", who is behind the door. But there was no response from the co-pilot. The captain knocks on the door, demanding to open the door. The co-pilot does not answer," says the prosecutor.
The co-pilot's name is Andreas Lubitz. 28 years. By nationality - German. Worked at Germanwings since 2013. Flight experience is short - only 630 hours. The prosecutor's office claims that he was tested for possible involvement in terrorist organizations and was not blacklisted by the intelligence services. Management at Lufthansa, which owns Germanwings, says Lubitz passed all physiological and psychological tests.
"The longest break in his flight training was 6 years. But before we hired him, he passed all the tests again. He was one hundred percent ready to fly. No restrictions. No additional recommendations. Absolutely all checks showed him suitability," says Lufthansa Chairman of the Board Carsten Spohr.
Members of the flying club in which Lubitz was a member also did not notice anything suspicious. Everyone spoke of him as a pleasant and cheerful person.
"He seemed very happy. Andreas was glad that he got this job. He trained for this in the United States. He studied for three years. When he came back to renew his license, we talked for a long time. He told a lot of things, and it seemed to us that he is still an open young man,” says Lubitz’s flying club colleague Peter Rüsker.
Hans, Andreas Lubitz's neighbor, is already tired of answering questions from journalists. He burst into tears and compared this tragedy to the massacre carried out by the Norwegian terrorist Breivik.
"Poor people! This is very similar to the horror that happened in Oslo, where 70 children died," he said.
Investigators did not comment on the pilot's religious beliefs, saying that this was not relevant to the case. The terrorist attack version is not being considered.
“There is no reason to believe that this was a terrorist attack. Now we will study the environment of this person,” said the Marseille prosecutor.
The police and the press surrounded the house in German city Montabur, where Lubitz lived, and interviews everyone who knew the pilot. And in Düsseldorf, Lubitz’s apartment has already been searched.
Analysis of the audio recording of the “black box” leaves no doubt: as soon as the first pilot left the cockpit for a minute, his colleague closed the door, turned on the instruments to lower the aircraft and stopped communicating. The recording of the last 30 minutes before the crash makes it clear that Lubitz was conscious and perfectly aware that he was flying towards death, taking the lives of 149 more people with him.
“You can hear the co-pilot pressing the buttons of the monitoring system to lower the plane. I repeat, he is the only one controlling the Airbus A-320. The action to select the altitude is carried out consciously,” Brice Robin clarifies.
Now that the investigation has made its findings public, it has become clear that there is a gross violation of protocol on the part of the crew members. Experts insist: one person should not have remained in the cabin. The absent pilot's place must be taken by one of the stewards. That did not happen.
“If a person harbored the idea of suicide, then he could create some kind of legend for himself, only he knew how to provoke the captain to leave. Versions can be different - see if the plane was icy from the window, so as not to frighten the passengers; the kitchen began to smoke, there were some strange smells, and so on,” believes Honored Pilot of Russia Viktor Sazhenin.
Dozens of instructions have been written and videos have been made about the exact protocol of behavior when one of the pilots leaves the cockpit. Strict rules were introduced after the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001. One of these videos was distributed today by representatives of the Airbus company. From this video instruction it follows that it is still possible to get into the closed cockpit. To do this you need to know special code. If no one answers on the intercom, a secret combination of numbers gives the crew a small window, just five seconds, during which the door is open. However…
“There is another possibility: the person who remains in the cockpit can get up and close the door with a mechanical latch, and then nothing will help, no digital code,” says Honored Pilot of Russia Pyotr Marchenko.
The passengers of the crashed Airbus did not know about the inevitable outcome until the last moment - the descent of the airliner was too smooth. People started screaming moments before they died.
There are plenty of cases in the history of aviation when pilots deliberately drove a plane to its death. Since the mid-70s, there have been at least seven of them, the largest being the incident on October 31, 1999, the crash of an EgyptAir Boeing 767 off the coast of the American island of Nantucket. Flight 990 was traveling from Los Angeles to Cairo. The aircraft crashed into the Atlantic waters as a result of a sudden loss of altitude. American experts came to the conclusion that the cause of the disaster was the deliberate actions of the co-pilot, who, in the absence of the commander, turned off both engines and, with the words “I rely on God,” sent the plane into a dive. There were 217 people on board, all of them died.
The news that the cause of the crash was the suicide of the co-pilot, and not technical malfunctions of the plane or depressurization of the cabin, forced the French prosecutor's office to change the nature of the investigation and open a criminal case.
Lufthansa and its subsidiary Germanwings are undoubtedly facing numerous lawsuits from relatives of the victims. Some of the relatives of the passengers arrived today at the scene of the plane crash. Their communication with the press is not planned; the gendarmerie took the people under protection. The search and removal of the remains of the victims continues at the scene of the tragedy. According to French authorities, work to identify them has already begun.
