What happened to that 154. What happened over the Black Sea?

The crash of a Tu-154 aircraft of the 223rd flight detachment of the Russian Ministry of Defense last Sunday morning became one of the biggest tragedies of the past year. There were 92 people on board the liner, all of them died. The plane took off from the Chkalovsky airfield near Moscow and was supposed to land for refueling in Mozdok, but due to weather conditions the refueling airfield was changed to Sochi. The plane took off from Sochi at 5.25 and fell, spending two minutes in the air before the disaster. The flight's destination was the Russian Khmeimim airbase in Syria. The plane was carrying artists of the Alexandrov military ensemble, journalists and military personnel accompanying them. In addition, Elizaveta GLINKA, known as Doctor Lisa, and the head of the Department of Culture of the Ministry of Defense Anton GUBANKOV were on board.
In each such case, the emergence of different versions of what happened is inevitable. Lenta.ru tried to figure out what was happening*.

The Tu-154B-2 aircraft, tail number RA-85572, produced in 1983 at the Kuibyshev Aviation Plant (now the Aviakor plant), was operated almost all the time by the Ministry of Defense - first as part of the 8th Special Purpose Air Division of the USSR Air Force, then created in 1993 of the 223rd flying detachment.
As of the day of the disaster, the plane had exhausted about 11 percent of its flight life with an average flight time of just over 200 hours per year, which is relatively little for passenger airliners, which in civil aviation are operated with an intensity of 1000 or more hours per year. The assigned service life of the aircraft was 37,500 hours, or 16 thousand landings, and it could be extended to 60 thousand hours and 22 thousand landings.
Tu-154B-2 has currently been taken out of commercial service due to non-compliance with accepted noise standards and high fuel consumption, but military vehicles still remain in service.
The aircraft operator - the 223rd flight detachment of the Ministry of Defense, a Russian state aviation enterprise - provides air transportation in the interests of government agencies and performs irregular cargo and Passenger Transportation, as a rule, personnel of the Armed Forces. The enterprise was organized on the basis of the 8th special purpose aviation division (8 adOSNAZ, 8 adon) of the Russian Air Force in Chkalovsky in accordance with the presidential order Russian Federation dated January 15, 1993 No. 37-rp “On ensuring the activities of the 223rd and 224th flight detachments of the Russian Ministry of Defense” for air transport in the interests of government agencies.
The main publicly discussed versions of what happened come down to three: equipment malfunction, pilot error, terrorist attack.
A concomitant factor to the first two could be the weather, but the available data on the actual weather conditions in Sochi at the time of the disaster indicate that they were quite acceptable. Visibility 10 kilometers or more. Cloudiness in several layers: the lower layer is 5-7 octants (eighths) with a lower edge of 1000 meters, above it there is another layer, continuous, with a lower edge of 2800 meters, temperature +5, dew point +1, pressure approximately 763 millimeters of mercury. The runways are dry. East wind 5 meters per second. At sea the wave height is up to 0.1 meters.
All three versions can neither be confirmed nor excluded before the official conclusions of the investigation commission, but you can try to “lay out on the table” the available information, at least in order to organize it.
The last time the RA-85572 aircraft was repaired was in December 2014, and in September 2016 it underwent scheduled maintenance. The aircraft's total flight time over 33 years of operation was 6,689 hours.
This age and service life are completely normal for aircraft in military service. Thus, one of the main cargo and passenger aircraft of the US Air Force, the C-135 Stratolifter, built from 1956 to 1965, still remains in operation, and the total service life of these aircraft could approach a century - they will remain in the Air Force until at least 2040 of the year.
The Tu-154 itself is a reliable aircraft, however, no aircraft are insured against technical problems, and, of course, this version will be one of the main ones.
The crew of the crashed airliner is described as experienced. The Tu-154 plane that crashed in the Black Sea was flown by first class pilot Roman VOLKOV. The total flight time is more than three thousand hours, the military department reported to the media.
Lieutenant Colonel Alexander PETUKHOV, the navigator of the crashed Tu-154B-2, took part in the rescue of the “dancing airliner” in April 2011. Then a plane of the same model landed at Chkalovsky airport with a faulty control system. The Tu-154B-2 RA-88563 was planned to be transported to Samara for repairs. After the plane took off, problems were discovered in its control system. The plane began to sway in the air and bounce, which was noticeable from the ground. Journalists later called the liner dancing.
Nevertheless, the plane was returned to the runway in Chkalovsky thanks to the skillful actions of the crew. Petukhov was the navigator of the “dancing liner”, along with his colleagues he was awarded the Order of Courage.
At the same time, taking off from coastal airfields has always been not the easiest procedure, and the Tu-154, especially in version B, is described by many pilots as a fairly strict aircraft to fly, placing high demands on the pilot, which also does not allow one to immediately dismiss the possibility of a tragic accident. errors. According to civil aviation pilots, a little over three thousand hours of experience for the commander of a machine of this class is insufficient.
Finally, considering political situation, one cannot exclude the possibility of a terrorist attack, including due to the specific features of the organization of military flights. Unfortunately, the stringency of screening and security on military passenger flights is much less than on commercial airlines. As noted by many military personnel and civilians who have experience flying Ministry of Defense aircraft from Chkalovsky and other military airfields, pre-flight inspection on such flights often comes down to an empty formality in the form of checking passenger lists with documents, especially when “their” team is flying. When flying abroad - to Syria, for example - it is somewhat stricter (border formalities are included), but even in this case it does not compare with traditional measures at most civil airports in developed countries.
Under these conditions, it is possible to assume the presence of an explosive device on board, which could have been placed in the luggage of the liner during loading or carried on board during an intermediate landing in Sochi. In any case, the possibility of such a development of events is not excluded by the special services, which began checking those who could have access to the plane at the departure airport and in Sochi.
A variation of the version of the terrorist attack is the assumption put forward in some media about an attack on the plane using a man-portable anti-aircraft missile system, which could have been carried out by terrorists either from a boat or from a residential area on the coast, but this option is hardly possible, given that the crashed airliner was supposed to land in Moz-dok, and if they intended to attack him while landing/takeoff from the refueling airfield, they would have been waiting for him there.
One way or another, the investigation has just begun. A plane crashing into the sea can seriously complicate it - a steep drop in depth in the Sochi area, where the continental slope at an angle of 45 degrees sharply drops down 500, 1000 or more meters, and a thick layer of silt will greatly complicate the search for the wreckage of the airliner. The Il-18V aircraft that crashed in the same area in 1972 fell a little further from the coast - at a distance of about 10 kilometers, but its debris went to a depth of 500 to 1000 meters, and neither large parts of the fuselage and wings, nor flight recorders could be found .
Given these conditions, every hour matters: with every hour, the wreckage that has sunk under water will sink deeper and deeper. This, obviously, is understood by all responsible persons: the diving elite of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Russian Navy - deep-sea divers from all four fleets with special equipment and underwater vehicles - are being transferred to Sochi.
Lenta.ru

* Everything that has been said about the causes of the plane crash is a presentation of versions that do not yet have official confirmation. Until the publication of official conclusions about the results of the investigation into the causes of the disaster, none of these versions can be considered true.

The reasons for the crash may vary...

On Monday morning, a day of national mourning for those killed in the Tu-154 plane crash in the Black Sea, Russian authorities officially announced that the main versions of the tragedy do not include an act of terrorism. Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation Maxim SOKOLOV (pictured), who headed the government-created commission on investigation into the causes of the crash, reported that the cause of the crash could have been the technical condition of the aircraft or pilot error.

According to the head of the Ministry of Transport, “today the main versions do not include a terrorist attack.” Sokolov noted that “a technical condition or a pilot error” could have led to the disaster.
At the same time, Sokolov did not answer the clarifying question whether an emergency situation could have caused the Tu-154 crash. “The purpose of our commission is not to assess and analyze the reasons that could lead to this disaster. The reasons may vary. They are now being analyzed by specialists and experts,” explained the head of the department.
Sokolov also told the media that the Ministry of Transport does not see the need to introduce additional security measures at airports after the Tu-154 crash.
Sokolov’s statement was preceded by a message received by TASS from a source in the special services that the version of the terrorist attack was not considered as the main one for a number of reasons. The agency's interlocutor said that before taking off from the Chkalovsky airfield in the Moscow region (the starting point of the route), the Tu-154 was carefully inspected. In addition, no one knew in advance about its refueling in Sochi - it was caused by bad weather in Mozdok. After arriving in Adler, the aircraft was kept under guard.
At the same time, experts interviewed by the Kommersant newspaper admitted that the disaster could have occurred due to a technical malfunction. In particular, the flap drive could have broken, causing them to be extended unevenly. Also, the possibility of getting into a so-called flat spin cannot be ruled out: this situation could have been triggered by the Tu-154 stabilizer jammed in the “pitch up” position.
After the plane crash, speculation appeared in the media about a possible terrorist attack on board the aircraft. Experts pointed to a suspiciously large spread of fragments, which may indicate the destruction of the plane in the air. They also drew attention to the fact that the aircraft that disappeared from the radar did not send any distress signals.
Experts also noted that the Tu-154 itself is very reliable. At the same time, an Interfax source in the emergency services stated a few hours after the disaster that, according to preliminary data, the crew “faced a technical malfunction of a critical nature” during the climb. A version related to a possible piloting error cannot be ruled out, but is unlikely due to the extensive experience of the pilots, the agency’s interlocutor noted.

The FSB named the working versions of the Tu-154 crash: foreign objects entering the engine, low-quality fuel, pilot error and technical malfunction. Experts interviewed by RBC doubt each of them

City residents at the mourning plaque for those killed in the Tu-154 plane crash (Photo: Viktor Korotaev/Kommersant)

Four versions

On Monday, December 26th, federal Service Security Service (FSB) listed the main versions of the crash of a Tu-154 flying to Syrian Latakia. This was the entry of foreign objects into the engine, low-quality fuel, which led to loss of power and failure of the engines, as well as piloting error and technical malfunction of the aircraft, the FSB Public Relations Center (PSC) clarified in a message quoted by TASS.

All these versions are included in the list of the most common causes of plane crashes, RBC said Chief Editor publications "Avia.ru" Roman Gusarov.

The FSB did not specify which of the listed versions is most likely. On Sunday, the authorities prioritized a technical malfunction of the plane, Interfax reported, citing a source in the emergency services. On Monday, Interfax, citing a source familiar with the situation, said that the cause of the Tu-154 crash could have been overload and equipment failure.

What happened to the Tu-154

The airliner, owned by the Ministry of Defense, took off from the Chkalovsky airfield near Moscow at 1:38 Moscow time on December 25. As RBC the airfield duty officer, before departure the plane underwent pre-flight training and “has flown before.” The plane refueled in Adler and headed for Syria.

The plane took off at 5:25, at 5:27 its mark disappeared from the radar, reported official representative of the military department Igor Konashenkov, quoted by the Zvezda TV channel.​.

There were 92 people on board: eight crew members and 84 passengers, including 64 members of the Alexandrov Ensemble. They were flying on military base We're hoping to perform there at the New Year's concert.

On board was a member of the Presidential Human Rights Council (HRC) Elizaveta Glinka, as well as the director of the Department of Culture of the Ministry of Defense Anton Gubankov and his assistant Oksana Batrutdinova, journalists from the television companies NTV (Mikhail Luzhetsky, Evgeny Tolstov and Oleg Pestov), ​​“Zvezda” (Pavel Obukhov, Alexander Suranov and Valery Rzhevsky) and Channel One (Vadim Denisov, Alexander Soydov and Dmitry Runkov).

The military investigative department of the RF Investigative Committee for the Sochi garrison opened a criminal case into the crash under Article 351 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Violation of flight rules or preparation for them”). On behalf of the Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Alexander Bastrykin, the investigation is being conducted by the central office of the Investigative Committee.

On the morning of December 26, the Ministry of Defense announced that 11 bodies of the dead and 154 fragments of the aircraft had been found. The bodies of ten dead and 86 fragments of bodies were flown to Moscow on Monday morning. As TASS reported with reference to the press service of the Ministry of Defense, two fragments of the control system structure were raised from the bottom, and their serial numbers determined that they belonged to the Tu-154; other elements are located at the bottom at a depth of about 30 m at a distance of 1.6 km from the coast; The scattering radius of the debris was about 500 m.

The department also reported that 100% of the surface of the crash area and a significant part of the bottom (7 out of 15 sectors) had been examined. The search operation involved over 3.5 thousand people, 45 ships and vessels, 12 aircraft, ten helicopters and three unmanned aerial vehicles.

A loss of power can occur when refueling an aircraft with “summer” fuel in winter, a source in the aircraft industry told RBC. At the same time, the expert noted that refueling with “summer” kerosene in the case of the Tu-154 could not lead to the failure of all engines, since it was not too cold. Even if the engines had failed, the source added, the shutdown of other systems would not have happened at lightning speed. “The auxiliary unit is responsible for generating electricity on board the aircraft. power point, also running on kerosene. Unlike engines, it is not picky about fuel. And in a critical situation, it would be possible to transmit a signal about an emergency on board,” noted RBC’s interlocutor.

The version with fuel is also considered untenable by the honorary president of the International Aviation and Space Salon (MAKS), test pilot Magomed Tolboev. He noted that aviation fuel undergoes several checks: upon arrival at the storage facility, during reloading into the tanker and directly during refueling. The latter involves crew members, namely the flight engineer, the expert emphasized.

Wing problem

The last plane crash, the cause of which was officially named as a technical malfunction of the aircraft, was the crash of a civilian An-140 in Iran on August 10, 2014. As TASS reported, the electronic engine control failed.

Experts interviewed by RBC do not believe in the version of a technical malfunction of the Tu-154. RBC's source in the aircraft industry noted that its design has been studied so well over decades of operation that it is almost impossible to miss any faults.

The Tu-154 has a mechanical control system using hydraulic boosters. According to Tolboev, complete failure of this system is possible only if all the liquid leaves it. “This system can fail only if a projectile hits the tank with hydraulic fluid, which is located in the center section. But even with a leak in the tank, you can continue the flight,” the expert said.

However, he caused a disaster due to fatigue failures in the wing mechanization. “When retracting the flaps, the mechanisms on the wings could not work synchronously - one section was completely retracted, but the other was not. The plane began to rotate and collapsed,” Tolboev suggested.

At the same time, none of the experts interviewed by RBC could identify any official version as the main one. Final conclusions can be done after examining the wreckage and deciphering the flight recorders.

With the participation of Philip Aleksenko

Over the Black Sea, became the 73rd liner of this family lost as a result aviation accidents. The total number of deaths in such incidents over 44 years reached 3,263 people. The Yuga.ru portal looked into the history of the aircraft’s operation and recalled the largest disasters involving it.

Tu-154 is a passenger aircraft developed in the 1960s in the USSR at the Tupolev design bureau. It was intended for the needs of medium-haul airlines and for a long time was the most popular Soviet jet passenger aircraft.

The first flight took place on October 3, 1968. The 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 Samara Aviakor plant. A total of 1,026 vehicles were produced. 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 was a modification of the Tu-154B-2. 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, RA-85572 was transferred to the USSR Air Force.

According to some Tu-154 pilots, the aircraft is too complicated for mass production. 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 to replace it with modern analogues - the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320.

In 2002, EU countries, due to discrepancies in the level of permissible noise, banned flights of Tu-154s not equipped with special noise-absorbing panels. And since 2006, all Tu-154 flights (except for the Tu-154M modification) in the EU were completely banned. Aircraft of this type were operated mainly in the CIS countries at that time.

In the mid-2000s, the aircraft began to be gradually withdrawn from service. The main reason is the low fuel efficiency of the engines. Since the aircraft was designed in the 1960s, the developers did not face the issue of engine efficiency. The economic crisis of 2008 also contributed to accelerating the process of decommissioning the aircraft. In 2008, the entire Tu-154 fleet was withdrawn by S7, followed by Rossiya and Aeroflot the following year. In 2011, the operation of the Tu-154 was stopped " Ural Airlines" In 2013, aircraft of this type were withdrawn 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 Alrosa Airlines, which has two Tu-154M aircraft in its fleet. According to unconfirmed reports, two Tu-154 aircraft, including the oldest model of this family, produced back in 1976, are owned by North Korean airline Air Koryo.

In February 2013, serial production of the aircraft was discontinued. The last aircraft of the family, produced at the Samara Aviakor plant, was transferred to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

The largest disasters of domestic Tu-154

02/19/1973, Prague, 66 dead

The Tu-154 aircraft was performing a regular passenger flight from Moscow to Prague when, while landing, it suddenly went into a rapid descent, not reaching 470 m from the runway, crashed into the ground and collapsed. 66 people out of 100 on board died. This is the first accident in the history of the Tu-154 aircraft. The Czechoslovak commission was unable to establish the causes of the incident, only suggesting that during the approach to land the airliner suddenly encountered a zone of turbulence, which led to a loss of stability. The Soviet commission came to the conclusion that the cause of the disaster was an error by the aircraft commander, who, during landing, accidentally, due to imperfections in the control system, changed the angle of the stabilizer.

07/08/1980, Alma-Ata, 166 dead, 9 wounded on the ground

The plane, flying on the route Almaty - Rostov-on-Don - Simferopol, crashed almost immediately after takeoff. The plane demolished two residential barracks and four residential buildings, injuring nine people on the ground. By official version, the disaster occurred due to a sudden atmospheric disturbance that caused a powerful downward air flow (up to 14 m/s) and a strong tailwind (up to 20 m/s) during takeoff, at the time of mechanization cleaning, at high take-off weight, in high-altitude conditions 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 airliner was completing a passenger flight from Krasnoyarsk and was landing when it lost altitude and landed on a field, not reaching about 500 m from the runway, after which it crashed into a radio beacon embankment and collapsed. 99 people out of 167 on board were killed. According to the commission's conclusion, the cause of the disaster was the loss of longitudinal control of the aircraft at the final stage of landing 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 made untimely.

12/23/1984, Krasnoyarsk, 110 dead

The airliner was supposed to carry out a passenger flight to Irkutsk when an engine failure occurred while climbing. The crew decided to return, but during landing a fire broke out, which destroyed the control systems. The car crashed to the ground 3 km before runway No. 29 and collapsed. The root cause of the disaster was the destruction of the first stage disk 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 terms of death toll in the history of Soviet aviation and Tu-154 aircraft. The airliner performing regular flight on the route Karshi - Ufa - Leningrad, 46 minutes after departure at an altitude of 11 thousand 600 m, it lost speed, fell into a flat tailspin and crashed to the ground.

According to the official conclusion, this happened due to the influence of high non-standard outside air 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 could not cope with piloting the aircraft. An unofficial version is widespread: before the flight, the crew’s rest schedule was disrupted, resulting in the total waking time of the pilots amounting to almost 24 hours. And soon after the flight began, the crew fell asleep.

07.12.1995, Khabarovsk region, 98 dead

The Tu-154B-1 airliner of the Khabarovsk united air squad, flying on the route Khabarovsk - Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk - Khabarovsk - Ulan-Ude - Novosibirsk, crashed into Mount Bo-Dzhausa 274 km from Khabarovsk. The cause of the disaster was presumably asymmetrical pumping of fuel from the tanks. The ship's commander mistakenly increased the resulting right roll, and the flight became uncontrollable.

07/04/2001, Irkutsk, 145 dead

While landing at Irkutsk airport, the airliner suddenly fell into a flat tailspin and crashed to the ground. During the landing approach, the crew allowed the aircraft speed to drop below the permissible speed by 10-15 km/h. The autopilot, turned on in altitude maintenance mode, increased the pitch angle as the speed dropped, which led to an even greater loss of speed. Having discovered a dangerous situation, the crew added a mode to the engines, tilted 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 bring the plane out of the roll, but his actions only increased it. The state commission blamed the cause of the disaster on the erroneous actions of the crew.

10/04/2001, Black Sea, 78 dead

The Siberia Airlines Tu-154M airliner was flying on the route Tel Aviv - Novosibirsk, but 1 hour 45 minutes after takeoff it crashed into the Black Sea. 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 Ukrainian military exercises held on the Crimean peninsula. Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexander Kuzmuk apologized for the incident. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma acknowledged 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 a flight over the Rostov region, a strong explosion occurred in the tail section of the airliner. 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 Glubokoye, Kamensky district, Rostov region, and was completely destroyed. The explosion on the plane was carried out by a suicide bomber. Immediately after the terrorist attacks (on the same day, a Tu-134 plane flying from Moscow to Volgograd exploded), the terrorist organization Islambuli Brigades took responsibility for them. But later Shamil Basayev stated that he prepared the terrorist attacks.

According to Basayev, the terrorists he sent did not blow up the planes, but only hijacked them. Basayev claimed that the planes were shot down by Russian air defense missiles, as the Russian leadership feared that the planes would be sent to any targets in Moscow or St. Petersburg.

08/22/2006, Donetsk, 170 dead

The Russian airliner was carrying out a scheduled passenger flight from Anapa to St. Petersburg, but encountered a severe thunderstorm over the Donetsk region. The crew requested permission from the dispatcher for a higher flight level, but then the airliner lost altitude and three minutes later crashed near the village of Sukhaya Balka in the Konstantinovsky district of the Donetsk region.

“The lack of control over the flight speed and failure to comply with the instructions of the Flight Operations Manual (Flight Operations Manual) to prevent the aircraft from entering stall mode due to unsatisfactory interaction among the crew did not prevent the situation from becoming catastrophic.”, said the final conclusion of the Interstate Aviation Commission.

04/10/2010, Smolensk, 96 dead

Presidential airliner Tu-154M Air Force Poland was carrying out a flight on the Warsaw-Smolensk route, but when landing at the Smolensk-Severny airfield in heavy fog, the airliner collided with trees, capsized, crashed to the ground and was completely destroyed. All 96 people on board were killed, including Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria Kaczynski, as well as well-known Polish politicians, almost all the high military command and public and religious figures. They were heading to Russia on a private visit as a Polish delegation to the mourning events on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. An investigation by the Interstate Aviation Committee found that all systems of the aircraft were operating normally before the collision with the ground; due to fog, visibility at the airfield was below acceptable for landing, of which the crew was notified. The causes of the disaster were cited as the incorrect actions of the aircraft crew and psychological pressure on them.

The FSB voiced four main versions of the Tu-154 crash of the Ministry of Defense over the Black Sea: foreign objects entering the engine, low-quality fuel, piloting error or a technical malfunction of the aircraft. Pilots and experts aviation security suggested what most likely could have caused the crash.

Forensic experts from the Investigative Committee arrived at the site where the wreckage of RA-85572 was discovered - in the Black Sea near Sochi. This was reported by sources in law enforcement agencies.

“Tu-154 is one of the most reliable aircraft in the world. But this is a very strict aircraft to fly."

A group of divers from the Ministry of Emergency Situations found the fuselage of the plane at the bottom a mile from the coast - this was reported by the Southern Regional Search and Rescue Team (SRPSO) of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. Earlier it was reported that debris was found in a strip of 400 meters at a depth of 25 meters, 1.5 km from the coast abeam Khosta. Some fragments have already been brought to the surface.

Currently, search teams, including divers, are being assembled at the site where the wreckage was discovered. Now divers from the Ministry of Emergency Situations are carrying out a repeated descent. “There are a lot of small parts at the bottom and practically no large ones,” said the agency’s interlocutor.

Let us recall that in the crash of the Tu-154 plane of the Russian Ministry of Defense that occurred the previous morning, 92 people were killed, including nine media representatives (journalists from Channel One, NTV and the Zvezda TV channel) and 64 artists from the Alexandrov Song and Dance Ensemble. Also on the passenger list is the famous doctor Elizaveta Glinka (Doctor Lisa), who works for the university hospital in Latakia.

Four versions of the FSB

On Monday, the Federal Security Service announced... This is the entry of foreign objects into the engine, low-quality fuel (resulting in loss of power and engine failure), piloting error or technical malfunction of the aircraft.

The RA-85572 board took off at a standard speed of 345 kilometers per hour. No signs of a terrorist attack or sabotage have been detected on board the Tu-154 at this time, the FSB emphasized.

As a source in the special services explained to TASS, after arriving in Adler the plane was taken under guard. Only two border guards and one customs officer climbed on board, so the version of a bomb being brought in can be ruled out. In addition, the landing in Adler was unplanned, since refueling was initially planned in Mozdok, but the route was postponed due to weather conditions.

FSB representatives also reported: castaway The Tu-154 did not transport military or dual-use cargo, nor pyrotechnics.

Earlier, the head of the government commission to investigate the disaster, Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov, also said that the terrorist attack was not the main version of what happened. The technical condition of the aircraft, as well as piloting errors, are considered as the reasons, the head of the Ministry of Transport said. Sokolov clarified that his department does not see the need to introduce additional security measures at the country’s airports.

Non-synchronous cleaning of wing mechanization

Test pilot, Hero of Russia Magomed Tolboev noted that when determining the causes of the Tu-154 crash, it is worth considering technical problems. The expert said that he discussed the disaster with colleagues.

All of them, as a priority version, note that “non-synchronized retraction of the flaps” could have led to the death of the aircraft. “In general, this is called “non-synchronous retraction of the wing mechanization,” Tolboev noted.

The interlocutor explained that in this case, the flaps and slats are retracted on one side of the wing, but not retracted on the other side. “It turns out that the plane instantly turns around its axis. Neither the commander nor anyone has time to say a word, they are thrown there like herring in a barrel,” summed up Magomed Tolboev.

There are no parallels with the Tu-104 disaster of 1981

Note that earlier in the media there were suggestions that the cause of the death of the Tu-154 was the same as that of the Tu-104 disaster that took place in 1981 in Leningrad region. Then the plane crashed due to overload in the tail section: the command of the Pacific Fleet, flying on this side, stored heavy suitcases and other cargo in the tail of the liner. During takeoff, the “gifts” moved backwards, causing the plane to crash.

However, as Magomed Tolboev explains, parallels cannot be drawn between the Tu-104 crash in 1981 and the current Tu-154 crash. Such a situation, in which the cargo suddenly shifted to the tail, cannot happen on the Tu-154, Tolboev noted. “The Tu-154 has a central compartment under the wing near the center section and tail section; in addition, there is an automatic alignment device, which itself determines the transfer of fuel and the presence of a threat on board,” the source explained.

“The plane sets its controls so that the alignment is in one position,” the expert noted. “The Tu-104 did not have an automatic tracking system, and generals and admirals could load whatever they wanted into the tail.”

Small raid

Civil aviation expert, director of the ICAA Flight Safety programs Viktor Galenko believes that the most plausible version of what happened is a human factor, and not a technical malfunction. Galenko noted that “air crash statistics indicate a ratio of 8 to 2: out of ten such incidents, in eight cases the cause is the human factor, in two – everything else.”

After repairs, the Tu-154 aircraft was practically like new - the service life of this aircraft was 11%, the expert emphasized. “Tu-154 is one of the most reliable aircraft in the world. It has a huge power supply and a very high degree of wing mechanization,” the interlocutor noted. “This allows the aircraft to take off and land in any conditions - in particular, in conditions of high altitude, thin air and heat, which are much more difficult for pilots than those weather who were in Adler."

“But there is one detail: this is a very strict aircraft to fly,” the expert emphasizes. – The plane requires full preparation pilots at the flight school course. In the USSR, for the “carcass” they first took the test for the An-24 or Yak-40 from the pilot as a second pilot, then made him the crew commander of the An-24 or Yak-40, then again after a short retraining they “put him in the right seat” (second pilot - note VIEW) Tu-154, and only then, at the age of 40, the pilot could lead the crew of the Tu-154.”

The commander of the crew of the crashed plane, first class pilot Major Roman Volkov, is an experienced aviator, his total flight time was more than 300 hours, Galenko points out. “But the annual flight time of the crew of this aircraft was 200 hours, and this is not enough,” the interlocutor continues. “At the same time, different crews flew on it, so the hypothesis about the low flight time of the crew on this board is confirmed.”

The crashed Tu-154 itself is “an airplane Chkalovsky airfield, formerly in a separate squadron of the Ministry of Internal Affairs,” explains the interlocutor, adding: “I know the squadron commander, since just a month ago I took schoolchildren there on an excursion.”

The main problem for front-line pilots in almost all countries is the very small amount of flight time the crew has flown, Galenko believes. “Corporate aircraft with high fuel consumption and comfortable cabins fly extremely rarely; the military pilots flying them have little annual flying time. And this greatly affects the level of training of the crew,” the interlocutor believes. Back in Soviet times, pilots were forced to undergo simulator retraining even after vacation, but military pilots on these aircraft (the “ceremonial aircraft” of the Chkalovsky airfield) have breaks in flights of more than one month, Galenko notes.

Piloting of this aircraft is an inadequate task for pilots with little flying time, the expert summarizes.

“Oncoming on takeoff, passing on the flight level”

The expert believes that unfavorable weather conditions could not have been the cause of the disaster. “There were no dangerous weather conditions during the incident, the wind was fair during takeoff. At an elevation angle of 20 degrees, it was five meters per second,” Galenko emphasizes.

The peculiarity of Adler Airport is that takeoff and landing are carried out towards the sea. You cannot take off towards the mountains under any circumstances, there is fog there, the expert adds.

“Unfavorable conditions would be a tailwind (take-off is always carried out against the wind, pilots even wish each other “a headwind on takeoff, a tailwind on the flight level”), as well as heat - a plane takes off much better in the cold than in hot weather. However, even in the case of a tailwind and heat, the Tu-154 engine has a huge reserve of thrust. There was no icing or thunderstorms; other aircraft did not report high turbulence,” adds Galenko.

Weather conditions in the area of ​​the airport in Adler at the time of the Tu-154 crash are assessed as easy for piloting an aircraft, Roshydromet reported, which was quoted by "". “About five in the morning Moscow time, the temperature at the ground is +5, the wind is 5 m/s, visibility is 10 km. The weather conditions are quite normal,” the department emphasized. Sochi airport, from where the Tu-154 took off, continued to operate as normal, media reported.

At the same time, according to the online scoreboard, four flights were canceled in Adler on Sunday morning.

Weather conditions have repeatedly caused the death of aircraft around the world. On March 19 of this year, a Boeing 737-800 flying from Dubai crashed while landing in Rostov-on-Don. Because of bad weather The airliner was unable to land after two attempts, and after making another circle, it crashed near the runway, killing 55 passengers and 7 crew members. The investigation into the causes of the disaster continues.

On August 22, 2006, a Tu-154M airliner flying from Anapa to St. Petersburg crashed near Donetsk after a collision with a severe thunderstorm. There were 170 people on board. The cause of the disaster was blamed on the pilots' erroneous actions when trying to avoid a storm front. On February 12, 2002, an Iranian airline Tu-154 crashed near the Iranian city of Khorramabad, with 119 people on board. The plane crash occurred after difficult weather conditions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Did the crew manage to understand what happened?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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