The catastrophe in Kazan: reasons, expert comments, the transcript of the "black box"

On that day, November 17, 2013, at the airport in Kazan, nothing preceded the disaster. All ground services worked in the regular mode and were preparing to receive Boeing-737, which was carrying out flight U9-363 and completing its flight from Moscow. But fate decreed otherwise. At 19 o'clock. 23 min. According to Moscow time, diving at a critical angle for him, the plane crashed into the runway. The tragedy claimed the lives of all fifty people who were at that time on board.

Questions that have not been answered

The plane crash in Kazan was studied in detail by the investigative commission, which included representatives of the Interstate Aviation Committee, Rosaviatsia and several other agencies. From their materials, the details of what happened happened. In December 2015 saw the light of their official document entitled "Final Report".

However, the disaster in Kazan left a lot of questions for specialists and the general public, who did not find the answer in this document, and where there is no specific information, as you know, there are rumors and speculation. We will try, based on the materials known to us, to reconstruct the picture of the tragedy that occurred on a cloudy November evening in 2013 at the airport of the capital of Tatarstan.

Doomed flight

That day, coming off at 18 o'clock. 25 min. From the runway of Domodedovo International Airport, Boeing-737 headed for Kazan. On board, except for the crew, among whom were two pilots and four stewardesses, there were forty-four passengers. Especially it would be desirable to note that the catastrophe in Kazan claimed the lives of several well-known persons flying this flight. Among them - the head of the republican FSB A. Antonov, the son of the President of Tatarstan I. Minnikhanov, the famous chess player G. Rashitov, as well as the relatives of the commentator of the Rossiya-2 channel R. Skvortsov.

The airliner, who served on that day flight 363, had time to see a lot in his lifetime. He first climbed into the sky in 1990 and for twenty-three years of service, worked for seven international companies. Before becoming the property of Tatarstan, he served in the civil aviation of Bulgaria, Ireland, Brazil, Uganda and France. It happened to the veteran to be in extreme situations. Once his chassis was refused, and the pilots put him on the "belly". Another time there was a depressurization of the cabin.

Pilots who lifted the plane into the sky

When the investigative commission examined in detail the personal files of the pilots who were flying the aircraft on that ill-fated day, she stated their clearly insufficient qualification. It follows from the materials of the case that the commander of the ship is Rustem Salikhov, having worked in the airline Tatarstan for more than twenty years, nevertheless at the helm of the aircraft Boeing-737 was a beginner.

Before, he flew as a navigator and retrained in the training center that had been eliminated by that time. The investigation caused great doubt the license obtained by this center, as well as the legality of obtaining Salikhov's pilot's certificate of commercial aviation.

His partner - co-pilot V. Gutsul - after working in the company for five years, only in 2011 he sat at the helm of Boeing-737. He had previously served as a flight mechanic, and just like the commander, he did not have enough flying experience.

Abnormal situation on board

The airport of Kazan met the staying liner with a weak rain with snow and stratocumulus clouds. However, visibility was not less than ten kilometers, which allowed for a visual control regime. Performing at a speed of 250 km / h an ordinary landing approach and at a distance of about 500 meters from the beginning of the runway, the commander of the ship informed the ground of the occurrence of an abnormal situation on board. According to him, the plane was in the "non-landing" position, deviating to the right of the axis of the route for four kilometers.

This information completely coincided with the data received by the airport controller based on the readings of the instruments. The approach was made in automatic mode. Kazan airport was equipped with the newest electronic system of aircraft guidance on the axis of the runway, and what caused the deviation remained unclear. Perhaps the liner was demolished in the direction of a strong gust of wind.

The circumstances created called for a run-in to the second round. This maneuver was carried out in an automatic mode using the TOGA system, specially designed to help pilots in abnormal situations and taking out the aircraft with a beacon on the ground in the landing position. The turnaround was successfully carried out, but at the end it happened, as a result of which the plane crashed in Kazan.

Switching to manual control

In its report, the Interstate Aviation Committee noted that when landing, the aircraft was controlled manually. As the pilots familiar with the control of the Boeing-737 board explain, this conclusion means that at the moment of completion of the turn the second pilot took hold of the helm, disabling the autopilot, which took the car to the desired altitude.

As shown by the investigation of the disaster in Kazan, at first his actions were correct and corresponded to the maneuver being carried out. As shown later onboard recorders, extracted after the accident from a black box, the liner went into a mode close to the takeoff. His flaps were moved to the appropriate position and the climb required to continue the maneuver began. And at this stage, there was a fatal failure, the consequence of which was a catastrophe in Kazan in 2013.

Probable pilot error

Obviously, in view of the pilot's mistake, the nose of the aircraft was sharply raised and reached a critical angle of 25 ° for Boeing-737. He began climbing, but with this machine position, strong resistance to the oncoming air flow was created, which resulted in a drop in speed from 278 km / h to 231 km / h.

Running forward, it must be said that, according to experts, it was at this point that the fatal point of no return was passed . Having lost speed, the plane went to "stalling", and given that the height was at that time extremely low to escape from the peak - 700 meters, it was already impossible to save it.

The crew undertook actions to reduce the angle of flight and manually, using the capabilities of the steering columns, tried to put the liner into a descending mode. But, having lost the necessary speed, the aircraft began to fall sharply in the peak and rushed to the ground, moving at an angle of 70 °. This fall lasted about twenty seconds, after which, at a speed of 450 km / h, almost vertically crashed into the runway.

The first minutes after the disaster

The sound of a deafening explosion was heard a few kilometers away. On the liquidation of the ensuing fire, the emergency services of the airport worked until morning. Only when the fire was completely extinguished, representatives of the investigative bodies began to work. What they saw shocked them. At the moment of the accident, the speed was so high that none of the people on the plane had a chance to save. The catastrophe in Kazan turned a multi-toned car into shapeless debris scattered over a considerable distance. The crumpled pieces of fuselage, armchairs, luggage and human bodies lay scattered around ...

The horror was engulfed by those who came to the airport to meet their friends and relatives that day. In the first minutes, none of them could believe in the reality of what had happened. For most, the latter was the hope that there was an error in the list of passengers, and their relatives were not on board. The whole republic was in solidarity with those who lost their relatives and friends. In those days in Russian and foreign media the most repetitive were the words: "catastrophe", "Kazan", "Boeing".

To the credit of the taxi drivers, we must say that this evening they did not raise the fare, taking advantage of the opportunity. Moreover, they hung on the windshields of their cars the plaques with the inscription: "To the city for free" and drove so all who urgently needed to get to Kazan - the catastrophe on November 17 brought people together. In this regard, I do not want to recall how their Moscow colleagues behaved in 2014, when there was a crash in the Moscow metro.

The beginning of the investigation

One of the most important tasks of the investigative bodies was the search for "black boxes" - automatic flight recorders containing all flight parameters and negotiations of the pilots before the catastrophe in Kazan. Soon among the wreckage of the aircraft it was possible to find a parametric recorder that recorded all the work of mechanisms and electronic equipment.

He was in a damaged state, but nevertheless was of great interest to the investigation. He was urgently sent to Moscow, where the specialists of the Interstate Aviation Committee engaged in deciphering his data. It was very difficult to find a voice recorder and hear the voices of the pilots for a few moments to death.

It is puzzling that afterwards not all negotiations of the pilots became public. Most of them, according to the decision of the same committee, remained unpublished. This immediately gave rise to rumors that, perhaps, in the cockpit of the pilots at the time of the accident was one of the VIPs flying this flight, and as a result, there were suspicions - whether his self-imposed actions served as the reason for the occurrence of an abnormal situation. Quite an ordinary story - the result of concealment are conjectures.

The results of decoding the "black boxes"

In anticipation of the results of the decoding of the data stored by the "black boxes", the records of the internal monitoring cameras of the airport were carefully studied. They captured the last moments of the liner. The position of its signal lights and portholes clearly indicated that at the time of the crash, it was practically in an upright position. The investigation was to find out the reasons that provoked him to this. The answer to the question could only be given by flight recorders.

Two days later, preliminary results came from Moscow. However, deciphering the "black box", having answered a part of the questions posed, gave birth to new ones. The parametrical data testified that the crew, making the approach to landing, was forced to go to the second round, but what reasons prevented them from performing this action from the first time, remained unclear. For both pilots, Kazan airport was the place of their permanent work and, of course, was thoroughly studied. What happened this time?

The bewildering information was information indicating the complete inactivity of the crew as during a sharp climb, ended in a disastrous loss of speed for the aircraft, and during its dive, or rather, an almost vertical drop lasting twenty seconds.

The answer to this question was not even given a detailed study of the medical maps of the pilots and the results of the psychological tests they had passed. In any case, physicians claim that behaving so inadequately throughout the period of the deadly peak, which lasted, as already said, twenty seconds, they could either be in a state of uncontrolled panic, or in a complete stupor.

Signing of the final report of the investigative commission

Since the decoding of the "black box" never answered the question of the causes of the catastrophe that caused the death of a large number of people, Boeing specialists engaged in the development of this aircraft were involved in the work. They came to the aid of representatives of the French engine manufacturer, which fitted the aircraft of this model.

Formed from them the subcommittee worked until September 16, 2014 and unanimously concluded that at the time of the accident the plane was in good order. The signs of the failure of aviation equipment could not be found either in the records of the means of objective control, that is, the recorders, or in the surviving fragments of the units and assemblies of the crashed liner.

In April 2015, all members of the investigative commission signed their draft final report. The document has not been addressed by anyone, including the official representative of Rosaviatsia. He was also agreed with representatives of all countries that participated in the work of the commission. Among them were: America, France, Great Britain and Bermuda.

Special opinion of the representative of "Rosaviation"

But two months later such a community of opinions was broken. The signature of the document was unexpectedly withdrawn by a representative of Rosaviatsia. Based on the reasons unclear for the rest of the commission members, this department returned to the previous version of the reasons for the catastrophe in Kazan, namely, the failure of the elevator control system. Their position was impossible to explain, since the world practice testifies to the trouble-free operation of these elements, and so far no cases of their refusal have been recorded.

This statement had unexpected consequences. The leadership of the Interstate Aviation Committee issued a decree, according to which the operation of Boeing-737 aircraft was suspended throughout the country. However, "Rosaviation" and then showed obstinacy - she simply ignored the order of the higher organization, and the aircraft of this model continued to fly as if nothing had happened.

Problems with the preparation of the flight crew

Throughout the investigation period, the Director General of the Tatarstan airline V. Portnov was in the field of view of the prosecutor's office. He was held responsible for the fact that he, like the flight director of the company, admitted to the management of the passenger airliner of his commander Rustem Salikhov, who, in the opinion of the investigation, had no legitimate reasons. In November 2015, V. Portnov received a written undertaking not to leave the place.

The catastrophe (737) in Kazan forced to pay close attention to the overall level of training of the flight crew of the company. It turned out that in recent years, in view of the material difficulties experienced by Tatarstan, it was not possible to send sufficient funds to maintain the professional level of the pilots. By the way, this same problem is facing many foreign air carriers. As follows from the European media reports, a number of companies admitted that because of budgetary constraints they were forced to shorten the hours of training pilots.

The point in this case was set a week before the new, 2016, when the Interstate Aviation Committee published the text of the final version of the investigation results. The catastrophe in Kazan, the reasons for which were mentioned in the document, according to its drafters, was the result of both a technical malfunction of the aircraft, as stated in the special opinion by the representative of Rosaviatsia, and the lack of professional preparedness of the pilots.

Insurance payments to the families of the deceased

In accordance with the law, the aircraft, its crew and all the passengers on board were insured. As a result of the disaster, the insurance company made the appropriate payments. Of these, 580 million rubles for the aircraft and 100,000 rubles for the death of each member of the crew. The families of the passengers of this flight, and there were forty-four of them, received from the insurance company 2,025 million rubles.

The total amount of payments amounted to 9.5 million dollars. It should be noted that these amounts are lower than those that the relatives of the dead crew members were supposed to receive, and relatives of some of them announced their intention to sue the Tatarstan airline in connection with low insurance payments. The same applies to native passengers, for whom this flight was the last in life. The compensation received by them is obviously understated.

Thought-provoking statistics

Summarizing all of the above, it is impossible not to touch upon the issue of the problems experienced by the Russian civil aviation as a whole, the manifestation of which was the catastrophe in Kazan. Pilots of other domestic air carriers, of which there are about one hundred and twenty-two in our country, are in the same position as their colleagues from Tatarstan. The professional level and safety of passengers depends on the financing of the educational process, and this field of activity of companies is very difficult to control.

Statistics of accidents that have occurred on civilian airlines in recent years, does not add optimism. According to available data, Russia accounts for about 15% of the deaths in all air crashes in the world. If we consider that the Russian passenger traffic is only 2.8% of the world, this number of deaths makes us think about the level of flight safety. Within the framework of common problems, it is necessary to consider aviation accidents in Tatarstan, which were many in the history of Russian civil aviation.