Aircraft accidents, incidents and air crashes in the USSR and Russia. Ukraine’s guilt has not been proven, not recognized and not confirmed by payments to the families of the dead passengers

Over the Black Sea, it became the 73rd airliner of this family lost as a result of 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 most major disasters with his participation.

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 complex for a mass-produced passenger airliner and requires highly qualified 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In the mid-2000s, the aircraft began to be gradually withdrawn from service.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. According to the 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 removal, at a high take-off weight, in conditions of a high-mountain airfield and high air temperatures. 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 design features airplane. 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 history. Soviet aviation and Tu-154 aircraft. The airliner, performing a regular flight on the route Karshi - Ufa - Leningrad, 46 minutes after takeoff at an altitude of 11 thousand 600 m, 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.

12/07/1995, Khabarovsk Territory, 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 rapid growth vertical speed and increased 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

The presidential airliner Tu-154M of the Polish Air Force was flying 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 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 Tu-154 was developed by the Tupolev Design Bureau in the 60s of the last century. In 1968, the jetliner made its first test flight and was later put into mass production.

In the history of Soviet aviation, it became the most popular passenger jet air transport and remained in mass operation until the end of 2001. Over the entire history of its existence, more than a thousand medium-range jet vehicles have rolled off the production line. They flew all over Russia from Moscow to Yakutsk.

Over 30 years of service, 72 aircraft were lost and 3,263 people were killed. One of the typical accidents of a vessel of this class was the Tu-154 disaster in Irkutsk on July 4, 2001.

The archives of the Interstate Aviation Committee preserve a chronicle of the accident on board RA-85845 of Vladivostok Air, which occurred on July 4, 2001 over Irkutsk. Tu-154M was performing flight DD-352 from Yekaterinburg to Vladivostok and was supposed to make an intermediate landing in Irkutsk . There were 136 passengers and 9 crew members on board the liner. He came off radar at the beginning of 3 am. Communication with the crew was interrupted when the plane was already trying to land at Irkutsk airport.

The only witnesses to the tragedy were workers of an agricultural enterprise in the village of Burdakovka, 4 kilometers from where the plane crashed. Local residents are accustomed to the regular movement of aircraft overhead. They later claimed that the hum of the engines was unusual and unnatural. The farm duty shift ran out into the street and saw the descending airliner, and then a fireball flashed and a powerful explosion occurred.

The airliner, caught in a tailspin, fell from a height of 850 meters into a forest clearing. All that was left of it was the tail section; the remaining elements of the hull fell apart from the impact and subsequent explosion into small parts and scattered tens of meters around. No one had any chance of survival.

The current Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, Sergei Shoigu, who at that time headed the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, personally led the search and rescue operation and stated then that “the plane fell flat,” encountering virtually no resistance along the way.

Causes of the Tu-154 crash near Irkutsk in 2001

Hot on the heels of the disaster, a state commission was created to investigate the incident. By that time, the car had been in use for only 5 years. Two months before the crash, a Russian air carrier bought it from China and carried out major repairs.

Technical control also did not reveal any malfunctions. Moreover, a couple of minutes before the crash, the aircraft commander contacted ground services and reported that there were no incidents on board, and all technical parameters were normal.

Later, information was made public that the Tu-154 was unable to land on the first attempt and, already on approach to the fourth circle at an altitude of 850 meters, it turned in the opposite direction from the runway. The pilots were unable to level the plane, and it crashed to the ground.

A version of the simultaneous failure of all three engines was considered, but it also did not seem final due to the fact that such a possibility was excluded in this modification. Of course, the data from both recorders found at the scene of the plane crash were also checked. The final verdict pointed to the human factor.

How did events develop?

The crew made a mistake when landing on the runway, as a result of which the speed dropped by 15 km/h. The altitude-maintaining autopilot at that moment increased the pitch angle, which slowed the car down even more. In this situation, the crew tried to get the plane out by increasing thrust and maneuvering to the left. But at that moment, due to the turn, the pilots lost orientation, and the plane, sharply picking up speed, began to stall.

At the minimum altitude, an alarm went off, which forced both pilots to take the helm too sharply and pull it towards themselves, which played a fatal role. The following happened:

the elevator deflected to −24;
the liner went into a flat tailspin and headed down at a speed of 100 m/s.

The emergency lasted only 15 seconds. During the last meeting of the commission, the pilots’ actions were called “reflexive” and consistent with flight practice, but they failed to bring the car out of a tailspin.

This disaster was the fourth in the region in 7 years. At that time, the airfield in Irkutsk began to be called nothing more than an “aircraft cemetery.” Over a short period, 300 people died there.

After that disaster, 3 monuments were erected, reminders of the tragedy in the sky over Irkutsk. A monument in Vladivostok with the names of all the victims of the accident, including 21 fellow residents of the Far Eastern capital. A monument to the crew of board RA-85845 in Artyom, where the crew members lived, and an obelisk in the village of Burdakovka at the crash site of the crashed jetliner. You can watch a video with an authentic recording of the pilots’ conversations and a reconstruction of the plane’s trajectory below.

In contact with

Crew

The coordinates of the approximate crash site of the plane have been determined 42.183333 , 37.616667 42°11′ N. w. 37°37′ E. d. / 42.183333° N. w. 37.616667° E. d.(G) (O), which is approximately 280 kilometers from Novorossiysk.

A special commission was created to establish the causes of the accident. An An-26 of the Russian Federal Border Service urgently flew to the scene of the accident from Gelendzhik. The border patrol ship "Grif" also went there. Also, an AN-12 plane of the Ministry of Defense and a Mi-8 helicopter of the Sochi Search and Rescue Service with rafts and rescuers on board flew to the crash site, two rescue tugboats - "Mercury" from Tuapse and "Captain Beklemishchev" from Novorossiysk, as well as a vessel of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations - headed "Rescuer Prokopchik". The An-12 plane found oil stains at the supposed crash site. Helicopters found several pieces of the plane and the bodies of dead passengers floating on the surface of the sea.

Versions

Technical investigation

October 5 Information appeared about bullet holes found in the Tu-154 fuselage, but this information was called premature. Head of the West Siberian Regional Directorate air transport Vladimir Tasun stated that, “according to unverified information, the controller on the locator saw a luminous point quickly approaching the plane. This is the only thing that was received from unofficial sources via telephone channels by employees of the Sibir company from Rostov.” On the same day, rescuers from Israel joined the Russian rescuers, and an analysis of the Tu-154 crew’s conversations and an analysis of the videotape recording radar readings began. On this day, Prime Minister of Ukraine Anatoly Kinakh made a statement that the version of a missile hitting the Siberia Airlines Tu-154 plane “has a right to exist.”

October 6 Secretary of the Russian Security Council Vladimir Rushailo said that objects that were not related to the structure of the aircraft were found at the scene of the accident, and that “the aircraft was destroyed as a result of an explosive attack.” At the same time, the head of the Main Directorate of the North Caucasus Regional Center of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, Ivan Teterin, expressed the opinion that the likelihood of finding any remains of the Tu-154 aircraft at the bottom of the Black Sea is minimal due to the great depth and zero visibility.

October 7th According to the commission, at 13:45:12 the scream of the Tu-154 pilot was recorded by a ground tape recorder.

October 9 According to the commission, an analysis of the holes in the fuselage shows that the plane could have been hit by a missile from the S-200 air defense system, since the size and shape of the holes are quite consistent with the shrapnel of the high-explosive fragmentation warhead of the missile of this particular complex. Establishing the details of the disaster is complicated by the inability to determine the exact location of the plane crash - the debris was scattered over an area with a radius of more than 12 nautical miles.

October 10 The Russian Prosecutor General's Office reported preliminary data from a forensic medical examination of the victims - the cause of death of all 14 passengers, whose bodies were discovered during search and rescue operations, was barotrauma. Also, according to information from Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia Sergei Fridinsky, carbon monoxide was found in the blood of the victims, which indicates a fire on board the ship.

October 11 Vladimir Rushailo announced the conclusion of the technical commission that investigated the causes of the Tu-154 plane crash: “multiple damage in the form of similar holes indicate that the Russian aircraft was damaged from the outside.” At the same time, Rushailo emphasized that “the remains of the plane that crashed into the sea were not found due to the complex structure of the bottom, the aggressive hydrogen sulphide environment and a large layer of silt - up to 6 meters.”

October 12 Press Secretary of the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Konstantin Khivrenko, commenting on the preliminary results of the investigation into the incident, admitted that a Ukrainian missile could have caused the death of the Tu-154.

October 13 Vladimir Rushailo said that according to the analysis of the plane's wreckage and holes, an anti-aircraft missile exploded 15 meters above the plane. At a conference in Kyiv, the Minister of Defense of Ukraine apologized to the families and friends of those killed in the crash of the Russian Tu-154 aircraft. “We know that we are involved in the tragedy, although its causes have not yet been fully established.”

Ukrainian expertise

Legal investigation and claims for damages

Initially, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office opened a criminal case under the article “Terrorism” in connection with the crash of the Tu-154 passenger plane over the Black Sea. . After the publication of the commission’s findings on October 16, 2001, the case was transferred for proceedings to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, and the Russian side officially closed the case.

Immediately after the court decision, the head of the Fund for Assistance to the Families of the Victims, Boris Kalinovsky, and the Belonogov family, who refused to receive financial assistance, filed a lawsuit for compensation for moral damage - the defendants were the Cabinet of Ministers, the Ministry of Defense and the State Treasury of Ukraine. The case was heard in the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv and on January 30, 2008, compensation was completely denied. The motivational part of the refusal stated that the defendants’ guilt in the disaster was not established by the investigation of the prosecutor’s office, the evidence presented by the plaintiffs is contradictory and cannot be recognized as a basis for satisfying the claim. The losing party did not file an appeal against the court's decision.

Simultaneously with the claim from the relatives of the victims, Siberia Airlines OJSC filed a claim against the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the State Treasury of Ukraine for damages: the amount of the claim included the market value of the destroyed aircraft with additional equipment, costs associated with the investigation of the accident, insurance costs, lost profits due to the loss of the aircraft, and moral damages. The consideration of the case lasted more than seven years and ended in victory for the defense of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine: based on the work carried out by the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise additional analysis materials of the State Commission of Investigation - the claims were completely denied. On October 10, 2011, the losing party filed an appeal to the Economic Court of Appeal Kyiv.

On May 28, 2012, the Kiev Economic Court of Appeal rejected the complaint of the Russian airline Siberia (S7 Airlines) against the decision of the court of first instance, which did not admit the guilt of the Ukrainian military in the crash of the Russian Tu-154 in 2001. On December 11, 2012, the Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine upheld the decision. Representatives of the airline announced their intention to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

Versions of the causes of the tragedy

Operator error

The S-200 anti-aircraft missile system uses a semi-active guidance system, when the source of radiation is a powerful ground-based radar (“target illumination”), and the missile itself is guided by the signal reflected from the target. In the S-200, there are two main operating modes of the target illumination radar - MHI (monochromatic radiation) and FCM (phase code modulation). The MHI mode is typically used to scan the airspace when searching for targets, which determines the elevation angle, azimuth and radial speed of the target, but does not determine the range to the target. The range is determined in FCM mode, but switching the radar to this mode takes up to 30 seconds and may not occur if there is not enough time.

It is most likely that during firing training with the participation of Ukrainian air defense, which was carried out on October 4, 2001 at Cape Opuk in Crimea, the Ty-154 aircraft accidentally ended up in the center of the intended firing sector of the training target and had a radial speed close to it, as a result of which it was detected by the S-200 radar and accepted as a training target. In conditions of lack of time and nervousness caused by the presence of high command and foreign guests, the S-200 operator did not determine the range to the target and “highlighted” the Tu-154 (located at a range of 250-300 km) instead of an inconspicuous training target (launched from a range of 60 km). Thus, the defeat of the Tu-154 by an anti-aircraft missile was most likely the result not of the missile missing the training target (as is sometimes claimed), but of the obvious aiming of the missile by the S-200 operator at an erroneously identified target. The calculations of the complex did not assume the possibility of such a shooting outcome and did not take measures to prevent it. The size of the range did not ensure the safety of firing air defense systems of such a range. The organizers of the shooting did not take the necessary measures to free up the airspace.

Terrorist attack

Due to the absence of the remains of the plane and the “black boxes”, which were never found, the establishment of absolutely reliable causes of the disaster was considered impossible by the KNIISE examination, but based on the available information, Ukrainian experts suggested that the plane was damaged by an explosive device that could have been located "between the ceiling of the interior of the aircraft" and its body.

Reactions of senior officials of states affected by the plane crash

Russia

Ukraine

Israel

Statement Ukrainian President“there are tragedies on a larger scale” shocked the world community. L. D. Kuchma's frivolous statement provoked an angry reaction from official Israel. The press secretary of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon commented on the statement of the Ukrainian president:

When the person killed is not a representative of your people, then it is probably possible to make such academic conclusions. 78 people died, most of whom were Israelis - for us this is the greatest tragedy.

The 16th episode of the series “Aerobatics” (Russia, 2009) contains references to the disaster described: the Russian Il-86 plane was flying from Tel Aviv to Moscow, fell into the zone of Ukrainian air defense training exercises over the Black Sea and was shot down from the S-200 air defense system (in the film, however, the plane was landed in the steppe in the Kuban)

Perpetuation of memory

Ten years later

Notes

I am not me and the rocket is not mine
Plane crash of flight Tu-154 Tel Aviv-Novosibirsk (2001). Help | Inquiries | News feed "RIA Novosti"
"The crash of the Tu-154 plane in the Black Sea occurred due to a terrorist attack"
Tu-154 plane crash in the Black Sea
Chronicle of the tragedy
Western media report that the TU-154 plane was shot down by a missile from Ukraine
Tu-154 was shot down by a Ukrainian missile?
In search of the Ukrainian trace
No bullet holes were found on the fuselage of the Tu-154 - News NEWSru.com
There is practically no hope for Triton
“The cause of death of the TU-154 passengers was barotrauma”
“Secretary of the Russian Security Council Vladimir Rushailo told reporters the conclusion of the technical commission. ..."
“The conclusion of the commission to investigate the death of TU-154: “the plane was hit from the outside””
News NEWSru.com:: Experts deny that the Russian Tu-154, which crashed into the Black Sea in 2001, was shot down by a Ukrainian missile
Experts deny that a Russian plane was hit by a Ukrainian missile in 2001 // RIANovosti Ukraine.
Ukraine sees no reason to initiate a case regarding the Tu-154 crash
The investigation is over, forget it
The Prosecutor General's Office has again taken up the case of the crash of the Russian Tu-154 over the Black Sea
The court ordered the Ukrainian prosecutor's office to resume the case of the Tu-154 plane crash
The Kyiv Economic Court rejected the claim of Siberia Airlines against the Ministry of Defense and the State Treasury of Ukraine
Ukraine denied a claim to the families of those killed in the Tu-154 crash
The decision of the Kyiv court in the case of the Tu-154 shot down in 2001 has been appealed
The Ukrainian military was not involved in the emergency situation with the Tu-154 in 2001, the court confirmed // RIA Novosti, 05/28/2012, 15:27
Khripun, V.; Shagiakhmetov, P. Ukraine will appear before the ECHR. Kommersant (December 12, 2012). Archived from the original on December 16, 2012. Retrieved December 12, 2012.

Tu-154 plane crash near Irkutsk - a crash that occurred on July 4, 2001 with an airline plane flying DD 352 Ekaterinburg - Irkutsk - Vladivostok. The plane crashed while landing. As a result of the disaster, 136 passengers and 9 crew members died.

Events

The Tu-154 airliner of Vladivostok Air was performing a standard flight Ekaterinburg - Irkutsk - Vladivostok. Having taken off from Yekaterinburg, the plane flew most of the way and approached Irkutsk airport at 01:50 local time. At 02:05, the aircraft commander reported that he could see the airport runway. Three minutes later, the plane disappeared from the radar screens of the Irkutsk air traffic control service.

At that moment, residents of the village of Burdakovka, located near the airport, heard a loud bang. The called police, together with the airport emergency services, arrived at the scene at 03:25. Arriving rescuers discovered the crash site of the plane, the wreckage of which was scattered over a huge area. There were no survivors. By morning, investigative teams managed to find the flight recorders.

Air crash investigation

By the morning of the disaster, the investigation team managed to find all three flight recorder, which greatly simplified the investigation of the tragedy. On December 13, 2001, the conclusion of the state commission to investigate the crash of flight DD 352 was published.

During the landing approach, the aircraft performed a turn with a left bank of 45°. However, the crew was unable to maintain the specified landing altitude of 850 meters and the required speed, as a result of which the autopilot increased the pitch angle (pitch) to compensate for the loss of altitude. Trying to prevent the threat of the airliner stalling, the crew manually reduced the altitude and increased thrust, increasing the speed, but seeing a too sharp loss of altitude, they excessively increased the angle of attack, lifting the plane nose up. The specified engine thrust at such angles of attack was not enough and the aircraft reached supercritical conditions. The crew hesitated and lost 10 seconds. By the time the engines reached maximum thrust, the plane had lost speed and was almost uncontrollable. Unable to stay in the air, the Tu-154, which had 145 people on board, crashed to the ground.

Crew

Versions

Technical investigation

October 5 Information appeared about bullet holes found in the Tu-154 fuselage, but this information was called premature. The head of the West Siberian Regional Air Transport Administration, Vladimir Tasun, said that “according to unverified information, the controller on the locator saw a luminous point quickly approaching the plane. This is the only thing that was received from unofficial sources via telephone channels by employees of the Sibir company from Rostov.” On the same day, rescuers from Israel joined the Russian rescuers, and an analysis of the Tu-154 crew’s conversations and an analysis of the videotape recording radar readings began. On this day, Prime Minister of Ukraine Anatoly Kinakh made a statement that the version of a missile hitting the Siberia Airlines Tu-154 plane “has a right to exist.”

October 7th According to the commission, at 13:45:12 the scream of the Tu-154 pilot was recorded by a ground tape recorder.

Ukrainian expertise

Legal investigation and claims for damages

Simultaneously with the claim from the relatives of the victims, Siberia Airlines OJSC filed a claim against the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the State Treasury of Ukraine for damages: the amount of the claim included the market value of the destroyed aircraft with additional equipment, costs associated with the investigation of the disaster, expenses for insurance, lost profits due to the loss of the aircraft, and moral damages. The consideration of the case lasted more than seven years and ended in a victory for the defense of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine: based on an additional analysis of the materials of the State Commission of Investigation carried out by the Kiev Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise, the claims were completely rejected. On October 10, 2011, the losing party filed an appeal to the Economic Court of Appeal of Kyiv.

Versions of the causes of the tragedy

Operator error

Terrorist attack

Reactions of senior officials of states affected by the plane crash

Russia

Ukraine

Israel

The Ukrainian president’s statement “there are tragedies on a larger scale” shocked the world community. L. D. Kuchma's frivolous statement provoked an angry reaction from official Israel. The press secretary of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon commented on the statement of the Ukrainian president:

When the person killed is not a representative of your people, then it is probably possible to make such academic conclusions. 78 people died, most of whom were Israelis - for us this is the greatest tragedy.

Perpetuation of memory

Ten years later

Notes

I am not me and the rocket is not mine
Plane crash of flight Tu-154 Tel Aviv-Novosibirsk (2001). Help | Inquiries | News feed "RIA Novosti"
"The crash of the Tu-154 plane in the Black Sea occurred due to a terrorist attack"
Tu-154 plane crash in the Black Sea
Chronicle of the tragedy
Western media report that the TU-154 plane was shot down by a missile from Ukraine
Tu-154 was shot down by a Ukrainian missile?
In search of the Ukrainian trace
No bullet holes were found on the fuselage of the Tu-154 - News NEWSru.com
There is practically no hope for Triton
“The cause of death of the TU-154 passengers was barotrauma”
“Secretary of the Russian Security Council Vladimir Rushailo told reporters the conclusion of the technical commission. ..."
“The conclusion of the commission to investigate the death of TU-154: “the plane was hit from the outside””
News NEWSru.com:: Experts deny that the Russian Tu-154, which crashed into the Black Sea in 2001, was shot down by a Ukrainian missile
Experts deny that a Russian plane was hit by a Ukrainian missile in 2001 // RIANovosti Ukraine.
Ukraine sees no reason to initiate a case regarding the Tu-154 crash
The investigation is over, forget it
The Prosecutor General's Office has again taken up the case of the crash of the Russian Tu-154 over the Black Sea
The court ordered the Ukrainian prosecutor's office to resume the case of the Tu-154 plane crash
The Kyiv Economic Court rejected the claim of Siberia Airlines against the Ministry of Defense and the State Treasury of Ukraine
Ukraine denied a claim to the families of those killed in the Tu-154 crash
The decision of the Kyiv court in the case of the Tu-154 shot down in 2001 has been appealed
The Ukrainian military was not involved in the emergency situation with the Tu-154 in 2001, the court confirmed // RIA Novosti, 05/28/2012, 15:27
Khripun, V.; Shagiakhmetov, P. Ukraine will appear before the ECHR. Kommersant (December 12, 2012). Archived from the original on December 16, 2012. Retrieved December 12, 2012.