At 5.27 Moscow time after takeoff from the Sochi airfield, located in the city of Adler. The plane performed a scheduled flight on the route Moscow - Khmeimim (Latakia, Syrian Arab Republic).
Artists of the Academic Twice Red Banner Song and Dance Ensemble of the Russian Army named after A.V. Alexandrova in front of Russian soldiers and officers. Among the dead are the artistic director of the ensemble, People's Artist of Russia, Lieutenant General Valery Khalilov, deputy chief of the ensemble Andrei Sonnikov, chief choirmaster Konstantin Mayorov, five soloists. In total, the ensemble has lost almost half of its creative composition.
The plane, en route from the Chkalovsky airfield near Moscow to the Syrian airfield Khmeimim, had to refuel in Mozdok. However, due to bad weather, the Tu-154 was sent to Sochi. Upon arrival at the Adler airport, the plane was taken under guard by officers of the Border Guard Service of the Russian FSB and servicemen of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
An officer of the coast guard of the border troops of the FSB, who witnessed the crash of the Tu-154, said that before the disaster he had "an unnaturally raised nose." The border guard was on a boat in the Black Sea. According to him, the plane, instead of gaining altitude, began to quickly descend to the surface of the sea, as if about to land, and the next moment touched the surface of the water with its tail, which fell off on impact.
The maximum height to which the plane climbed was about 250 meters, and the speed was within 360-370 kilometers per hour.
To eliminate the consequences of the plane crash, the work of the operational headquarters and operational groups of the Southern Regional Center and the Main Directorate of the EMERCOM of Russia for the Krasnodar Territory was organized. Search and rescue operations were organized in cooperation with the relevant structures of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Federal Air Transport Agency, Rosmorrechflot, the Border Directorate of the FSB of Russia, the Ministry of Health of Russia, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, the Investigative Committee of Russia and government bodies of the Krasnodar Territory. They were carried out by forces with a total number of about 3.6 thousand people, more than 500 pieces of equipment, 45 watercraft, 15 aircraft, 16 helicopters and 20 unmanned aerial vehicles were used. The prospecting work was carried out using modern underwater robotic systems. Psychological support and medical assistance were provided to the families of the victims.
December 26, 2016 was declared a day of mourning in the Russian Federation in connection with the Tu-154 plane crash near Sochi.
In the area of \u200b\u200bthe search operation at a distance of 1700 meters from the coastline along the take-off axis of the aircraft by divers at the bottom of the Black Sea. Acoustic means in this place was determined by the radius of their scatter, which was about 500 meters.
The main phase of the search and rescue operation at the crash site. Rescuers raised to the surface all the main fragments of the crashed plane.
Full search operations in the Black Sea at the Tu-154 crash site.
More than half of the victims of the Tu-154 crash over the Black Sea in the Moscow region. After the completion of the funeral, a memorial stone was installed at the burial place of the victims.
On the fact of the crash of Tu-154 by the military investigation department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Sochi garrison on the grounds of a crime under Article 351 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (violation of flight rules, which entailed grave consequences). Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. On his behalf, a criminal case for further investigation.
Questions related to establishing the causes of the disaster,. In addition to the military, it includes representatives of the Ministry of Transport, the Interstate Aviation Committee, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Tupolev aviation concern.
Specialists and laboratory research facilities of the scientific and technical center of the Interstate Aviation Committee are also involved in the investigation of the disaster.
At the beginning of the investigation of the accident, the commission accepted more than 15 versions of the accident. The FSB called the main versions: foreign objects entering the engine, poor-quality fuel, piloting error and technical malfunction. Signs and facts indicating the possibility of committing a terrorist act or sabotage on board an aircraft,. Flight recorders, raised from the water, have reduced the number of versions of what happened in half.
According to the results of the investigation, it was established that the cause of the incident could have been a violation of the spatial orientation (situational awareness) of the aircraft commander, which led to his erroneous actions with the aircraft control bodies.
To calculate the mass of the crashed aircraft, special methods were applied, including using the data of a parametric recorder raised from the bottom of the Black Sea.
As a result, it became known that on December 24, when taking off from the Chkalovsky airfield near Moscow, from where the Tu-1542B-2 began its route, the takeoff weight of the aircraft, including 24 tons of fuel, was 99.6 tons.This exceeded the standards, but the deviation was 1 , 6 t was inconsequential. With this weight, the plane usually takes off without any problems.
In Adler, nobody left the Tu-154B-2, except for the commander and co-pilot. Nothing was additionally loaded onto the plane, but the liner was refueled to the maximum. There were 35.6 tons of fuel in its tanks.
According to experts, as a result, the takeoff weight of the airliner instead of the normative 98 tons was about 110 tons.
Early in the morning of December 25, Tu-154B-2 took off along a large runway (there are two of them in Adler). After that, the plane had to turn first to the right, then to the left, and then head for Latakia, for the Khmeimim airbase. However, the problems began during the ascent.
The separation of the aircraft from the Adler runway occurred only in the 37th second after the start of the takeoff run, at a speed of 320 km / h, while the pitch angle was from 4 to 6 degrees. All these parameters indicate that the plane took off with difficulty. The rate of climb was 10 m / s instead of the usual 12-15 m / s.
2 seconds after takeoff, the crew commander pulled the control wheel towards himself, lifting the nose of the aircraft so that the pitch was already 10-12 degrees. For the manager of an overloaded plane, these were very rash actions. The crew began retracting the flaps at an altitude of 150 m and at a speed of 345 km / h. Given the significant excess of the standard take-off weight of the Tu-154, these actions should have been performed at a higher speed.
The stall speed of the aircraft (low flight speed when the angle of attack reaches a critical value and the aircraft becomes uncontrollable) increases with mass and also depends on the position of the flaps (the more they are extended, the less it is). Therefore, for a certain weight, the speed may turn out to be such that before the flaps are retracted, it will be higher than the stall speed, and then less.
On the recordings of the voice recorder, one can hear how the co-pilot asked the commander for permission to clean the mechanization, but the latter did not answer. The co-pilot apparently interpreted his silence as a sign of agreement. The lifting force from the moment the mechanization began to harvest naturally began to drop sharply.
The plane managed to reach an altitude of 200 m, when the commander again made an unexpected movement - he moved the steering column away from him and then suddenly took it over again, having lost an already small height in the maneuver.
The flaps were not fully retracted yet, when a system was triggered in the Tu-154 cockpit, signaling a dangerous approach to the ground. The flap tilt angle was 5-7 degrees when the commander made a movement with the steering wheel and rudder pedals to the left. As planned, he should have done the opposite. The plane fell into a roll of 30 degrees.
At this moment, a signal of a dangerous bank sounds, to which no one pays attention. "We're falling!" - shouts the co-pilot.
The commander makes a movement with the steering wheel and pedals in the opposite direction and takes the steering column towards himself. At this moment, the angle of attack was 10 degrees. At the same time, the aircraft continued to accelerate to 500 km / h. Speed \u200b\u200bincreased, roll increased, and lift decreased. The Tu-154 had practically no headroom.
A few seconds later, already with a roll of 50 degrees and at a speed of 540 km / h, the plane touched the water with its left wing. Under these conditions, hitting a water surface is tantamount to hitting a rock. The plane collapsed, its debris scattered over a large area.
In total, the last flight of the Tu-154 lasted only 74 seconds.
Until the moment of hitting the water, the plane was fully operational. The meteorological conditions at the Adler airfield at the time of takeoff were favorable: the ambient temperature was 5 degrees above zero, the humidity was 76%, the pressure was 763 mm Hg. Art., crosswind - 5 m / s. Dangerous meteorological phenomena were not observed.
It also turned out that the deceased crew, together with an experienced commander, took off in a crashed car from the same runway in Adler just two months before the disaster - October 1, 2016.
Then the separation from the runway was made at a speed of 310 km / h. With a rate of climb of 12-15 m / s, the crew began to climb. At an altitude of 450 m, a turn to the right was carried out with a right bank of 20 degrees, then the plane made a turn to the left, and only then, at an altitude of 450 m, the flaps, which had previously been in the takeoff position of 28 degrees, were retracted within 13-14 seconds.
The actions of an experienced crew and the behavior of a serviceable vehicle during its next takeoff in Adler can only be explained by the fact that the commander of the Tu-154 did not know either the nature or the exact weight of the cargo on board, and, therefore, about the overload of his aircraft. Therefore, in Adler, fuel was poured into the plane. Probably, it would have been flooded less if they knew the exact weight of the property that was loaded onto the plane in Chkalovsky.
It is possible that something relatively small in volume was placed on the plane, but significant in its specific weight.
If the crew commander knew about the excess of the standard take-off weight by more than 10 tons, he would either refuse the flight, or take off, taking into account that the plane is overloaded.
The last actions of the crew can be explained by the fact that the pilots guessed that something was wrong with the plane and tried to return to the departure airfield in order to land on another, smaller runway in Adler. However, there was not enough height.
The dark time of day did not play the best role: the crew did not have a visual idea that there was very little left to the water surface.
On the Tu-154 plane, which crashed early in the morning of December 25, artists of the Alexandrov Song and Dance Ensemble were flying, who were supposed to give a New Year's concert at the Russian base of Khmeimim in Syria. They were accompanied by film crews from Channel One and Zvezda. A total of 92 people were killed - 84 passengers and 8 crew members.
Over the Black Sea, became the 73rd airliner of this family, lost as a result of aviation accidents. The total death toll in such accidents for 44 years has reached 3 thousand 263 people. The Yuga.ru portal looked into the history of the aircraft's operation and recalled the largest accidents with its participation.
Tu-154 is a passenger aircraft developed in the 1960s in the USSR at the Tupolev design bureau. It was designed for the needs of medium-haul airlines and for a long time was the most massive Soviet jet passenger aircraft.
The first flight was carried out on October 3, 1968. Tu-154 was mass-produced from 1970 to 1998. From 1998 to 2013, small-scale production of the Tu-154M modification was carried out at the Aviakor plant in Samara. A total of 1,026 vehicles were manufactured. Until the end of the 2000s, it was one of the most common aircraft on medium-range routes in Russia.
The aircraft with tail number RA-85572, which crashed on December 25, 2016 over the Black Sea, was manufactured in 1983 and belonged to the Tu-154B-2 modification. This modification was produced from 1978 to 1986: an economy class cabin designed for 180 passengers, an improved automatic on-board control system. In 1983, the RA-85572 was transferred to the USSR Air Force.
In the opinion of some Tu-154 pilots, the plane is too complicated for a mass passenger airliner and requires high qualifications of both flight and ground personnel.
At the end of the 20th century, the aircraft, designed in the 1960s, became obsolete, and airlines began replacing it with modern counterparts - the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320.
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In 2002, the EU countries, due to a discrepancy in the level of permissible noise, banned the flights of the Tu-154, which were not equipped with special noise-absorbing panels. And since 2006, all flights of the Tu-154 (except for the Tu-154M modification) in the EU have been finally banned. Aircraft of this type at that time were operated mainly in the CIS countries.
In the mid-2000s, the aircraft began to be phased out of service. The main reason is the low fuel efficiency of the engines. Since the aircraft was designed in the 1960s, the issue of engine efficiency was not before the developers. The economic crisis of 2008 also contributed to the acceleration of the aircraft decommissioning process. In 2008, the entire Tu-154 fleet was withdrawn by S7, the next year it was done by Russia and Aeroflot. In 2011, the operation of the Tu-154 was stopped by Ural Airlines. In 2013, airliners of this type were removed from the air fleet by UTair, the largest Tu-154 operator at that time.
In October 2016, the last demonstration flight was made by the Belarusian airline Belavia. The only commercial operator of Tu-154 aircraft in Russia in 2016 was the Alrosa airline, which has two Tu-154M aircraft in its fleet. According to unconfirmed reports, two Tu-154 aircraft, including the oldest model of this family, released back in 1976, are owned by the North Korean airline Air Koryo.
In February 2013, the serial production of the liners was discontinued. The last aircraft of the family, produced at the Aviakor plant in Samara, was handed over to the RF Ministry of Defense.
Major accidents of domestic Tu-154
02/19/1973, Prague, 66 dead
The Tu-154 plane was performing a regular passenger flight from Moscow to Prague, when, while landing, it suddenly went into a rapid descent, not having reached 470 m to the runway, crashed into the ground and collapsed. 66 people out of 100 on board were killed. This is the first incident in the history of the Tu-154 aircraft. The Czechoslovak Commission could not establish the causes of the accident, only suggesting that during the landing approach, the airliner unexpectedly fell into a zone of turbulence, which led to a loss of stability. The Soviet commission came to the opinion that the cause of the disaster was the error of the aircraft commander, who accidentally changed the angle of inclination of the stabilizer due to the imperfection of the control system during landing.
07/08/1980, Alma-Ata, 166 dead, 9 wounded on the ground
The plane, flying on the route Alma-Ata - Rostov-on-Don - Simferopol, crashed almost immediately after takeoff. The plane demolished two residential barracks and four residential buildings, as a result of which nine people were injured on the ground. According to the official version, the disaster occurred due to a sudden atmospheric disturbance that caused a powerful downdraft air flow (up to 14 m / s) and a strong tailwind (up to 20 m / s) during takeoff, at the time of mechanization harvesting, with a high takeoff weight. in the conditions of a high-altitude airfield and high air temperature. The combination of these factors at a low flight altitude and with a sudden lateral roll, the correction of which briefly distracted the crew, predetermined the fatal outcome of the flight.
11/16/1981, Norilsk, 99 dead
The liner was completing a passenger flight from Krasnoyarsk and was landing when it lost altitude and landed on the field, not reaching about 500 m to the strip, after which it crashed into a radio beacon embankment and collapsed. 99 people out of 167 on board were killed. According to the conclusion of the commission, the cause of the accident was the loss of longitudinal controllability of the aircraft at the final stage of the landing approach due to the design features of the aircraft. In addition, the crew realized too late that the situation was threatening an accident, and the decision to go around was taken out of time.
12/23/1984, Krasnoyarsk, 110 dead
The liner was supposed to perform a passenger flight to Irkutsk when an engine failure occurred during the climb. The crew decided to return, but during the landing approach a fire broke out that destroyed the control systems. The car crashed to the ground 3 km before runway number 29 and collapsed. The primary cause of the disaster was the destruction of the disk of the first stage of one of the engines, which occurred due to the presence of fatigue cracks. The cracks were caused by a manufacturing defect.
07/10/1985, Uchkuduk, 200 dead
This disaster was the largest in the number of deaths in the history of Soviet aviation and Tu-154 aircraft. The airliner, performing a regular flight on the Karshi - Ufa - Leningrad route, lost speed 46 minutes after taking off at an altitude of 11,600 meters, fell into a flat spin and crashed to the ground.
According to the official conclusion, this happened under the influence of a high non-standard outside temperature, a small margin in the angle of attack and engine thrust. The crew made a number of deviations from the requirements, lost speed - and failed to fly the plane. An unofficial version is widespread: before departure, the crew's rest regime was violated, as a result of which the total time of the pilots' wakefulness was almost 24 hours. And soon after the start of the flight, the crew fell asleep.
12/07/1995, Khabarovsk Territory, 98 dead
The Tu-154B-1 airliner of the Khabarovsk United Air Squadron, flying along the route Khabarovsk - Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk - Khabarovsk - Ulan-Ude - Novosibirsk, crashed into the Bo-Jausa mountain 274 km from Khabarovsk. The cause of the disaster, presumably, was the asymmetrical pumping of fuel from the tanks. The ship's captain mistakenly increased the resulting right-hand roll, and the flight became uncontrollable.
07/04/2001, Irkutsk, 145 dead
When landing at the airport of Irkutsk, the airliner suddenly fell into a flat spin and crashed to the ground. During the landing approach, the crew allowed the aircraft's speed to drop below the permissible speed by 10-15 km / h. The autopilot, switched on to maintain altitude, increased the pitch angle with a decrease in speed, which led to an even greater loss of speed. Having discovered a dangerous situation, the crew added a mode to the engines, deflected the steering wheel to the left and away from themselves, which led to a rapid increase in vertical speed and an increase in roll to the left. Having lost spatial orientation, the pilot tried to take the plane out of the roll, but with his actions he only increased it. The State Commission named the crew's erroneous actions as the cause of the crash.
04.10.2001, Black Sea, 78 dead
The Tu-154M airliner of Siberia Airlines operated a flight on the Tel Aviv - Novosibirsk route, but crashed into the Black Sea 1 hour and 45 minutes after takeoff. According to the conclusion of the Interstate Aviation Committee, the plane was unintentionally shot down by a Ukrainian S-200 anti-aircraft missile launched during a Ukrainian military exercise on the Crimean peninsula. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksandr Kuzmuk apologized for the incident. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma recognized Ukraine's responsibility for the incident and dismissed the Minister of Defense.
08.24.2004, Kamensk, 46 dead
The plane took off from Moscow and headed for Sochi. During the flight over the Rostov region, a strong explosion occurred in the tail section of the liner. The plane lost control and began to fall. The crew tried with all their might to keep the plane in the air, but the uncontrollable airliner crashed to the ground near the village of Gluboky, Kamensky District, Rostov Region and completely collapsed. The explosion in the plane was staged by a suicide bomber. Immediately after the terrorist attacks (on the same day, the Tu-134 plane exploded on the Moscow-Volgograd flight), the terrorist organization Islambuli Brigades claimed responsibility for them. But later, Shamil Basayev said that he had prepared the terrorist attacks.
According to Basayev, the terrorists sent by him did not blow up the planes, but only hijacked them. Basayev argued that the planes were shot down by Russian air defense missiles, as the Russian leadership feared that the planes would be directed to any targets in Moscow or St. Petersburg.
08/22/2006, Donetsk, 170 dead
The Russian airliner carried out a scheduled passenger flight from Anapa to St. Petersburg, but over the Donetsk region faced a severe thunderstorm. The crew requested permission from the controller for a higher flight level, but then the airliner lost altitude, and three minutes later crashed near the village of Sukha Balka in the Konstantinovsky district of the Donetsk region.
"The lack of control over the flight speed and the failure to comply with the instructions of the Airplane Flight Manual (Flight Operation Manual) to prevent the aircraft from entering the stall mode in case of unsatisfactory interaction in the crew did not prevent the situation from becoming catastrophic.", - said in the final conclusion of the Interstate Aviation Commission.
04/10/2010, Smolensk, 96 dead
The presidential airliner Tu-154M of the Polish Air Force was flying on the Warsaw-Smolensk route, but during the approach to the Smolensk-Severny airfield in heavy fog, the airliner collided with trees, capsized, crashed to the ground and completely collapsed. All 96 people on board were killed, including the President of Poland Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria Kaczynska, as well as famous Polish politicians, almost all the high military command and public and religious leaders. They were on a private visit to Russia as a Polish delegation to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. An investigation by the Interstate Aviation Committee established that all aircraft systems were working normally before hitting the ground; because of the fog, the visibility at the airfield was lower than the allowable for landing, and the crew was notified of this. The reasons for the crash were the wrong actions of the aircraft crew and psychological pressure on him.
After the complete decryption of the black boxes of the Tu-154 that crashed at the end of December 2016 in the water area of \u200b\u200bSochi - parametric and speech - The experts of the Ministry of Defense in fact can already accurately name the reasons for the plane crash. According to experts, the plane with passengers was destroyed by a combination of several factors:went on the last flight overloaded, and the co-pilot Alexander Rovenskytaking off, perhapsconfused the landing gear and flap control levers. When the crew noticed the error, it was already too late: the heavy Tu-154 simply did not have enough height for a rescue maneuver, so ithit the water with the tail of the fuselage and collapsed.
Heavy and uncontrollable
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.
The data of speech and parametric (recording the operation of all aircraft units) recorders studied by experts of the Research Center for the 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 sensors of the directional stability system worked - a source told Life. - The car began to lose altitude sharply due to problems with the flaps.
According to experts, this could have happened after the second pilot, 33-year-old captain Alexander Rovensky, instead of removing the landing gear, retracted the flaps.
From this, the plane went into an outrageous angle of attack, the crew tried to turn the car to reach the ground, but did not have time to do this, - added a source to Life.
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 of the plane was pulled down. It was impossible to save the car: there was not enough speed and height.The tail section first touched the water, 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 the co-pilot Alexander Rovensky, were confused, but quickly pulled themselves together and tried to save the plane until the last seconds.
DECODING:
Speed \u200b\u200b300 ... (Inaudible.)
- (Inaudible.)
Took the racks, commander.
- (Inaudible.)
Wow, e-mine!
(A sharp beep sounds.)
Flaps, bitch, what the fuck nya!
Altimeter!
Us... (Inaudible.)
(The signal sounds about a dangerous approach to the ground.)
- (Inaudible.)
Commander, we are falling!
So the experts realized that the plane had problems with the flaps precisely due to the fault of the crew.
The pilots who flew the Tu-154, with whom Life spoke, confirm the conclusions of the experts of the Ministry of Defense that the cause of the crash could be a pilot error.
In Tupolev, the landing gear and flap retracting handles are made on the visor of the cockpit, between them, above the windshield. You can confuse them, especially if the co-pilot, sitting on the right, whose duties include controlling the flaps and landing gear during takeoff, is tired, '' Honored Pilot of the Russian Federation Viktor Sazhenin, who himself flew for eight years on the Tu-154, told Life. - From this, the plane went into an outrageous angle of attack, hit the water, and its tail fell off.
This version is considered acceptable by the test pilot Hero of Russia Magomed Tolboyev.
On the Tu-154 control panel, the flap and landing gear switches are located above the windshield. Flaps on the left, landing gear 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 confuse the levers or be distracted by something, so the plane took off with the landing gear extended and the flaps retracted, '' Tolboyev told Life.
According to Tolboev, it cannot be ruled out that after takeoff the crew exceeded the speed and the flap mechanism collapsed, because of which the liner fell to the right, lost speed and crashed into the water.
Tragic experience
Another factor in the Tu-154 disaster in Sochi could have been the lack of sufficient knowledge of the ship's commander and co-pilot on how to act in an extreme situation.
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The crash with Tu-154 B-2 with tail number RA-85572 of the Ministry of Defense occurred on December 25, 2016. It was at 5:40 am Moscow time, 1.7 kilometers from the coast of Sochi. The board of the Ministry of Defense flew to the Syrian Khmeimim from the Chkalovsky airfield, and in Sochi it was just refueling. There were 92 people on board. A few minutes after taking off from the runway, the plane disappeared from the radar screens.
The crashed airliner was based at the Chkalovsky airfield near Moscow and was part of the State Airline 223rd Flight Squadron of the Ministry of Defense, which transports military personnel.
The Tu-154 B-2 modification is designed to carry 180 economy class passengers 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.
Published on 1/10/17 10:23 AMThe latest news about the crashed Tu-154 plane in Sochi: experts told why on December 25 last year, a plane of the defense department crashed over the Black Sea.
The reason for the plane crash in Sochi, the latest news: why the Tu-154 crashed over the Black Sea, experts from the Ministry of Defense told
Following the results of a complete decoding of the parametric and speech flight recorders of the Tu-154 aircraft, in December 2017, experts from the Ministry of Defense spoke about the reasons for the crash. According to experts, the airliner with passengers was ruined by a combination of several factors: the board went to Syria overloaded, and the co-pilot Alexander Rovensky confused the landing gear and flap control levers on takeoff, and when intcbatch the crew noticed an error, it was already too late: the heavy Tu-154 did not have enough height for a rescue maneuver, and it collapsed with the tail section of the fuselage.
A Life source familiar with the investigation said that the human factor was recognized as the priority version of the crash.
"The data of the speech and parametric (recording the operation of all aircraft units) recorders studied by experts of the Research Center for the 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 sensors of the directional stability system worked . The car began to lose altitude sharply due to "- the source quoted the publication.
Experts say this happened after the co-pilot, 33-year-old captain Alexander Rovensky, removed the flaps instead of the landing gear.
"From this, the plane went into an outrageous angle of attack, the crew tried to turn the car to reach the ground, but did not manage to do this," the source said.
The situation was aggravated by the overload of the Tu-154, because of which the tail of the aircraft was pulled down.
The source claims that the emergency situation came as a complete surprise to the crew: the commander of the airliner, 35-year-old Major Roman Volkov and co-pilot Alexander Rovensky, were confused in the first seconds, but then pulled themselves together and tried to save the plane until the last seconds.
The pilots who flew on the Tu-154, with whom the journalists managed to talk, confirmed the conclusions of the experts of the Ministry of Defense that the cause of the crash could be a pilot error.
The commander of the ship Volkov Roman Alexandrovich and the assistant to the commander of the ship Captain Rovensky Alexander Sergeevich
"Tupolev's" landing gear and flap retraction knobs are made on the visor of the cockpit, between them, above the windshield. You can confuse them, especially if the co-pilot, sitting on the right, whose duties include controlling the flaps and landing gear during takeoff, is tired. This plane went into an outrageous angle of attack, hit the water, and its tail fell off, "- said the honored pilot of the Russian Federation Viktor Sazhenin.
This version is considered acceptable by test pilot Hero of Russia Magomed Tolboyev.
"On the Tu-154 control panel, the flap and landing gear switches are located above the windshield. The flaps are on the left, the landing gear 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 confuse the levers or be distracted by something. , so the plane took off with the landing gear extended and the flaps retracted, "he said, noting that the version that after takeoff the crew exceeded the speed, which led to the destruction of the flap mechanism, cannot be ruled out.
Another factor of the Tu-154 crash in Sochi could be the lack of sufficient knowledge of the ship's commander and co-pilot regarding actions in an emergency situation.
"Most likely, neither the commander of the plane, Roman Volkov, nor the co-pilot, Alexander Rovensky, who graduated from military schools in the early 2000s, did not undergo special flight training," explained the representative of the commission to investigate the disaster in Sochi.
He said that if the pilots had undergone special training for piloting in extreme situations at the Lipetsk Aviation Center for retraining military pilots or at the Gromov Flight Research Institute, then, perhaps, the disaster could have been avoided.
"In the military schools that the pilots graduated from, they were unlikely to be taught how, if the flaps malfunction at low altitudes, put them on reverse release in order to take the liner out of the extreme angle of attack," he said.
In turn, the engineers of the Research Center for the Operation and Repair of Aircraft of the Ministry of Defense in Lyubertsy do not exclude that when the crew tried to turn the car in order to reach the ground, the board would have been saved if it had not been for overload.
"The overload is evidenced by the fact that when the plane began to lose altitude, the tail section was the first to hit the water, which fell off, and then the car caught the water with its right wing and crashed into the sea," a source in the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation explained.
At the same time, according to him, it cannot be ruled out that the luggage compartment was simply overloaded.
“After all, this was almost the last flight of a civilian aircraft to Syria, and the relatives and colleagues of the military who were on a mission could ask the management of the airfield and the crew to take the excess on board. And during the flight and after landing in Sochi, the cargo could shake. Sochi, the cargo moved to the tail section of the liner, and the car pulled down in an emergency situation with the flaps, "the expert noted.
As he wrote, the plane of the Russian defense department Tu-154 B-2 with tail number RA-85572 crashed in the Black Sea on December 25, 2016. There were 92 people on board. They all died.
