Translated material
Re-entry
The investigation into the plane crash in Perm has been resumed
The Investigative Committee yesterday announced the resumption of the investigation into the plane crash of the Boeing 737-500 passenger plane, which crashed in Perm on the night of September 14, 2008. This decision was made at the request of the relatives of those killed in the tragedy, who demanded an assessment of the actions of aviation technicians, doctors, dispatchers and employees of the airline that owned the crashed Boeing.On September 14, 2008, a Boeing 737-500 of Aeroflot-Nord (at that time a subsidiary of Aeroflot) operated regular flight No. 821 on the Moscow-Perm route. While re-landing at the Perm Bolshoye Savino airport, the airliner crashed at 5.10 local time in the Industrial district of the city. The plane crashed 10 km from the airfield onto the railway tracks, damaging about 500 m of the Trans-Siberian Railway. All 82 passengers and six crew members on board were killed.
According to the findings of the technical commission of the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC), which were announced back in February 2009, several different factors led to the disaster. The main one, according to experts, was that at the final stage of the flight the crew “lost spatial orientation.” This led to the plane flipping over the left wing and “intensive descent.” It turned out that the “loss of spatial orientation” was a consequence of insufficient professional training of the crew. Among other factors, experts noted that before the fall, the airliner’s autopilot was turned off, as well as the engine’s automatic thruster, which should equalize their power.
Experts came to the conclusion that the pilots were simply confused by the instrument readings at a key moment. In particular, we are talking about an attitude indicator - a device that helps the crew determine the position of the aircraft in space - roll on one or the other wing and pitch (the angle of the aircraft's nose up or down). The display of such devices on Russian and foreign airliners is fundamentally different. Experts came to the conclusion that the Boeing pilots, who had previously flown on Russian planes, flying at night and in thick clouds, did not understand the position of the plane. After the plane banked to the left wing during its descent, they, relying on the readings of an unusual instrument for them, mistakenly believed that it was banking to the right. Trying to level the plane, they further increased its left bank, as a result of which the airliner collapsed.
As a result, the investigation concluded that the only culprit in the plane crash was the aircraft commander, Rodion Medvedev, and at the end of February the criminal case was closed due to his death.
Yesterday it became known that the criminal case was sent for additional investigation. “The leadership of the Investigative Committee has canceled the investigative resolution to terminate the criminal case regarding the crash of the Boeing 737-500 aircraft on September 14, 2008 in Perm,” the Investigative Committee reported. -- The criminal case has been sent for additional investigation with specific instructions to verify the actions of officials who were entrusted with the responsibility for ensuring the safe operation of the aircraft, and to make a procedural decision in relation to them. The investigation has been taken under special control by the Investigative Committee.” The department also noted that “the investigation was instructed to give a legal assessment of the actions of all persons who carried out pre-flight measures to prepare the aircraft and check the crew before departure.”
“The Investigative Committee has resumed the investigation into the causes of the plane crash in Perm thanks to our complaint addressed to Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika and the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, which we filed on March 29 for a resolution to terminate the criminal case,” Igor Trunov, a lawyer for the relatives of the victims, said yesterday. “In it, we asked the investigation to evaluate the numerous facts of gross violation of the law by a number of officials related to the disaster.” The defense lawyer noted that the investigation into the plane crash in Perm was resumed after the personal intervention of the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, and on his direct orders, but he does not know when exactly this happened - the lawyer has not yet received the notification sent by the Investigative Committee by mail.
According to Mr. Trunov, the investigators’ conclusion about the guilt of the crew commander in whose tissues alcohol was found in the plane crash is not exhaustive. “Everything was blamed on the pilot. Yes, he was drunk, but someone let him fly, behind all this lies the personal responsibility of the officials,” said lawyer Trunov.
In their complaint, the relatives of the victims, based on the findings of the IAC commission, pointed out numerous violations on the part of a number of officials, and demanded that the UPC bring them to criminal responsibility under paragraph 2 of Art. 109 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (causing death by negligence due to improper performance by a person of his professional duties).
“The text of the resolution we received to terminate the criminal case creates the feeling that for a year and a half of work, the only task of the investigation was to justify the actions of the officials through whose fault the disaster occurred,” said the victims’ complaint. -- The death of the plane was caused not only by the actions of the pilots, but also by the criminal negligence of many Aeroflot officials and related structures. Under Art. 109 includes persons who have committed gross violations of the work and rest regime of pilots. Before the disaster, the pilots had been flying for three nights in a row, and a few days before the disaster, the crew worked a half-month's workload. A factor contributing to the loss of spatial orientation is the use of flight instruments with different types of display on the same type of aircraft. It is known that a number of pilots who flew Boeing 737 aircraft wrote reports about the inadmissibility of installing flight instruments with different types of display on the same type of aircraft. Which official is to blame for ignoring these warnings from the pilots?”
Relatives of the victims, citing the conclusions of the IAC commission, also believe that the actions of the air traffic controllers contributed to the disaster: “The pilots’ loss of spatial orientation was also contributed to by the unqualified actions of the air traffic control service. Why was the plane, which had already almost landed, sent for a second approach? The controller explained this to the pilots by changing the takeoff course by the Lufthansa crew. When organizing the return approach, the controllers confused the pilots, as evidenced by the recordings of the conversations.”
In addition, the victims believe that airline officials should also be held accountable. “In February last year, the relatives of the victims sent a petition to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation and the Chairman of the SKP, in which they demanded to investigate all the circumstances related to the conclusion of the lease agreement by Aeroflot for the Boeing 737-500 airliner No. VP-BKO with the leasing company Pinewatch Limited. We consider these actions of Aeroflot officials to be the root cause of the tragedy. There is clearly a corruption component in their actions, the complaint noted. — Those who made the decision to lease the aircraft understood that the airliner’s service life was practically exhausted. According to the American law firm Ribbeck Low Chartered, the US Federal Aviation Agency did not issue a flight certificate for the operation of the engines of this aircraft in Russia. Obviously, therefore, all flights of this aircraft were registered as international. Who is the author of this scheme, which made it possible to circumvent the ban on the operation in Russia of an aircraft that did not have the specified certificate?”
As Mr. Trunov admitted, the decision of the UPC came as a pleasant surprise to him. “Previously, in such cases, everyone released the brakes. If you remember the plane crashes over Donetsk, in Irkutsk, there was also talk about similar violations by a number of individuals, but no one investigated these violations. I think that this time there were too many glaring facts, which the MAK specialists pointed out in their conclusions,” the lawyer said.