Translated material
Commander's error
The criminal case regarding the plane crash near Donetsk has been closed
The Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation has completed its investigation into the crash of the Pulkovo Airlines Tu-154 passenger plane , which crashed on August 22, 2006 near Donetsk. The culprit of the accident was recognized as the aircraft commander, Ivan Karagodin. Since he himself was among the dead, it was decided to close the criminal case “due to the death of the main culprit.” Thus, there is no one else to answer for the death of 170 people on board the liner.The news of the closure of the criminal case regarding the plane crash near Donetsk was announced yesterday morning by lawyer Igor Trunov, who represents the interests of relatives of the victims of the tragedy. According to him, representatives of the investigation informed him about this, although he has not yet seen or received the resolution itself. Nevertheless, Mr. Trunov immediately stated that the injured party categorically disagrees with this decision. “We intend to appeal this decision, since the investigation did not evaluate other officials who currently continue to perform their duties, however, in our opinion, they should be held accountable,” the lawyer said. In his opinion, in addition to the crew, those who provided the flight and training of pilots on the ground should be held accountable.
A Pulkovo Airlines Tu-154 plane crashed on the afternoon of August 22, 2006, while flying from Anapa to St. Petersburg. The plane flew over the territory of Ukraine, being at an altitude of more than 10 km; several SOS signals were first received from the plane, and then it disappeared from the tracking radars. The wreckage of the Tu-154 was discovered 40 km from Donetsk. At first, experts were unable to find reliable information about the circumstances of the disaster. All that was known was that the liner was trying to get around a powerful thunderstorm front. The Prosecutor General's Office opened a case into the plane crash, and at the same time a commission of the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) began to establish the technical causes of the accident. IAC experts announced their conclusions only in February, admitting that the plane was operational, and piloting errors led to its crash.
In particular, in the conclusion of the IAC it was noted: “In the absence of the necessary recommendations on the features of piloting in the longitudinal channel and the use of the electric trim mechanism in the flight manual of the Tu-154M aircraft and the crew training programs, as well as the impossibility of practicing the skills of piloting the aircraft in control mode at high altitudes and angles of attack, due to the lack of suitable simulators for this, the crew, when avoiding zones of thunderstorm activity and turbulence, allowed the aircraft to swing in pitch and go beyond the operational range of angles of attack.”
Translated into simple language, this meant that, having switched control of the airliner from the autopilot to manual mode, the aircraft commander (PIC) Ivan Karagodin, who did not have sufficient piloting experience in such a situation, simply lost control. As experts found out from the results of deciphering the “black boxes”, the PIC, with movements of the steering wheel, caused the aircraft to sway along the longitudinal axis (that is, the plane was either raising or lowering its nose) and missed the moment when the Tu-154M reached supercritical angles of attack (raising the nose of the aircraft too much , due to which the lifting force of the wings dropped sharply). The lack of coordination of the crew also played a role. According to the regulations, the co-pilot must monitor the speed, but at the time of the accident there was a trainee in his seat. He did not warn the commander about the drop in speed. Neither did the co-pilot, who was also in the cockpit and was obliged to monitor the trainee’s actions and, in case of an error, to back him up. All this, combined with the actions of the commander, who ignored, as experts noted, “the instructions of the flight management to prevent the aircraft from entering stall mode,” led to the disaster. The plane, having lost speed, fell almost flat to the ground.
With the exception of the trainee pilot, the crew members were far from new. Karagodin flew the Tu-154 for about 6 thousand hours, of which about 2300 were as a commander. But IAC experts noted that Karagodin, like other pilots, did not have the opportunity to practice the skills of piloting an aircraft in control mode at high altitudes and angles of attack “due to the lack of suitable simulators for this.”
This point was immediately noted by lawyer Trunov, in whose opinion those who trained the pilots and released an incompletely prepared crew on the flight should also be held accountable. Although there are nuances here - according to the IAC report, the pilot training met Russian standards.
In addition, the victims consider their right to an objective investigation to be violated. According to Mr. Trunov, they were not allowed into the case and did not have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the decisions made by the investigation. A complaint on this matter has already been sent to the European Court of Human Rights. The victims also intend to challenge the issue of payment of compensation to the relatives of the victims. “Each passenger on this plane was insured for more than $300,000, but the courts recovered amounts from $500 to $1,000 in favor of the victims,” the lawyer said.