“Erroneous actions of the crew” are named as the cause of the Tu-154 crash over the Black Sea, which occurred on December 25, 2016. RIA Novosti, citing the Ministry of Defense, reported: “Based on the results of the investigation, it was established that the cause of the incident could have been a violation of the spatial orientation (situational awareness) of the aircraft commander, which led to his erroneous actions with the aircraft controls.”

Almost simultaneously with the RIA Novosti report, four pages of the report of the head of the Aviation Safety Service of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant General Sergei Baynetov, on the results of the work of the “commission for investigating the aviation accident” were leaked onto the Internet. The document is very similar to the real one. It is dated May 4, 2017 and has the reference number 137/2/883 DSP (the abbreviation DSP means for official use).

The report of Lieutenant General Baynetov describes in great detail the last flight of the crashed Tu-154, which was part of the 800th special purpose airbase of the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS). At the same time, the last minutes are second by second. Key takeaways from the document: “The cause of the crash of the Tu-154 B-2 aircraft was a violation of spatial orientation (situational awareness) of the aircraft commander, which led to his erroneous actions with the aircraft controls, as a result of which the aircraft, during the climb, went into descent and collided with the water surface.” .

The document emphasizes that the aircraft commander, Major Roman Volkov “began to experience difficulties in determining his location on the airfield, associated with his idea of ​​​​the upcoming take-off course”, not understanding which of the two runways of the Sochi airport would take off from.

At 5 hours 24 minutes 36 seconds the crew began takeoff with a heading of 238°. But already in the seventh second of take-off, the aircraft commander (PIC) “emotionally began to ask the crew about the take-off course.” Moreover, with the use of “obscene language,” which led to “to the PIC’s failure to control take-off ground parameters, to the distraction of crew members from performing their functional duties”.

Having barely taken off from the ground, setting the plane to a pitch of 15°, Major Volkov turned the steering wheel away from himself, slowing down the climb. And already at the 53rd second of the flight, when the plane had gained only 157 meters of altitude, the PIC ordered the flaps to be removed, although according to all regulations this operation is carried out at an altitude of at least 500 meters. At the same time, Volkov continued to tilt the steering wheel away from himself. Which led to the fact that at an altitude of 231 meters the plane switched to descent mode, losing altitude at a speed of 6-8 m/s. The siren sounded and the red display flashed in the cockpit. But none of the crew paid attention to this.

At the 70th second of the flight, when the Tu-154 was only 90 meters from the surface of the water, the PIC abruptly turned the aircraft, which was turning with a slight right bank of about 10°, into a steep left bank of 53°. The plane rushed to the surface of the water three times faster, at a speed of 20 m/s, and was already doomed.

At the 73rd second of flight, the Tu-154, at a speed of 540 km/h and a left roll of about 50, touched the surface of the sea with its left wing, fell apart and sank.

The report of Lieutenant General Baynetov indicated that the emergence of a critical situation on board the Tu-154 was facilitated by the “emotional and physiological fatigue” of commander Volkov, as well as his lack of “sustainable skills” in piloting in difficult situations.

Experienced military pilots, whom we asked to comment on the commission’s conclusions about the causes of the Sochi disaster and the document distributed on the Internet, similar to the report of the head of the Aviation Safety Service of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, agreed that there were many inconsistencies in both the official report and the “document.”

Our experts noticed that at the Sochi airport the planes taxi to the start behind the escort vehicle. In addition, the airport is equipped with illuminated taxiway and runway number signs. It is almost impossible to get lost at Sochi airport. If Major Volkov is already “lost” on the ground, a take-off ban should immediately follow.

It is impossible to explain what happened after takeoff:

“Unless there has been collective insanity,” said one of our experts. “The actions of both the captain and the crew are absolutely inadequate. The actions of the rudders (especially the rudder - from the pedals) after takeoff cannot be explained normally. The flight speed indicated in the document allows the plane to stay in the air, but a normal, trained, tested and approved pilot for this type of flight could not allow such actions with the rudders.

The actual withdrawal of the co-pilot and navigator also defies explanation:

— The crew sees that the PIC is making one fatal mistake after another, and does nothing. This is impossible in military transport aviation.

“We can assume that KPP-1 (the flight control instrument is the main instrument of any aircraft) failed,” another of our interlocutors suggested. — The “document” says about its direct indication, they say, it’s difficult. Yes, it's difficult. During retraining, on the simulator. And Volkov was an experienced pilot. In addition, KPP-1 has a backup attitude indicator AGR-72.

Our experts noticed that the “document” says that the landing gear was removed, but in all the photographs of the collected debris of the crashed Tu-154, the landing gear is in the extended position.

One of our experts, a military transport aviation veteran with more than 10 thousand flight hours, of which about 4 thousand as a Tu-154 crew commander, continues to adhere to the version that Novaya published back in March. Our interlocutor suggests that the full-time commander of the Tu-154 crew, Major Roman Volkov, acted as a co-pilot during takeoff, although he was in his seat, and the pilot who took off was not only not trained and not authorized to fly this type of aircraft, but also not included in the flight mission, senior in rank and position. Yes, he had extensive flying experience, but on other types of aircraft, for example on the An-72. On board the crashed plane there was indeed a senior instructor-pilot of military unit 42829, a lieutenant colonel. And he flew precisely on the An-72.

The “document”, positioned as the report of Lieutenant General Sergei Baynetov, is very similar to the real one, but our experts do not rule out that it is a fake, made “on the basis” of the real document.

The tragedy in the skies over the Black Sea coast occurred against the backdrop of victorious messages from Aleppo, the surrender of Palmyra, advances and bloody retreats. The beautiful idea of ​​“cleansing with music” a space contaminated with evil was literally shattered. Scary and bitter.

This Black Sunday, December 25, 2016, became a test for final dehumanization - or for human safety. An adviser to the Ukrainian president offers to bring bottles of Hawthorn to the gates of the Russian Embassy. Belarus declares mourning. Domestic (!) journalists lament the fact that few media representatives died and declare that there is nothing to grieve about. In Donetsk they propose to name Elizaveta Glinka street, in Belgrade - a square, in Grozny - a children's clinical hospital.

A plane was flying to Syria with truly precious cargo. With talented, unique, inimitable people. “Condolences to everyone. An irreparable loss, because they were irreplaceable.", – with these words of the official speaker of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova It's hard to disagree. But maybe these irreplaceable ones should be especially taken care of? Although, one might say: who knew...

Equipment failure or human factor?

Could bad weather conditions be the cause? Unlikely. The board, on the contrary, changed direction - instead of the military airfield in Mozdok, where there was heavy fog, heading to Adler, where the sky was clear. The weather report at the time of departure was wind 4 m/s, visibility without restrictions, cloud base 1000 meters. Human factor? Pilot error? But the plane was flown by a double crew of experienced pilots, with hundreds of hours of flight time under different weather conditions, who were trained to work in emergency situations - the leadership of the Defense Ministry often flies from Chkalovsky. The plane was flown by a first class pilot Roman Volkov- a highly qualified aviator with 3,000 flight hours. In conversations with dispatchers, the pilots, according to all reports, did not show any concern. There was no time to react to the emergency situation (make an emergency landing or at least send a signal to the ground), this is true. Experts suggest that a tragic chain of accidents could have taken place: for example, equipment failure on takeoff.

There are also assumptions made about an overload of fuel (they took it with reserves “for Syria”), about a bird getting into the engine - there is an ornithological park not far from the airport. But it is unlikely that the birds were able to disable all three engines. Tu is a reliable machine, and there are cases when such aircraft landed even when all three engines failed. And even falling into a flock of birds does not explain the instant loss of communication and leaving the radar. And the control system of the Tu-154 has fourfold redundancy.

Wherever you throw it, there’s a wedge everywhere

If we assume that the death of the Tu-154 was the result of a terrorist attack (a week after the assassination of the ambassador in Turkey, against the backdrop of the final “speeches” of the administration Barack Obama and rumors about the supposedly announced George Soros“Day H” - December 25, when “everything will begin”), then the very idea of ​​​​sending a Russian military contingent to Syria becomes meaningless. After all, they planned to cut off oxygen to the “bearded” there, in the east - so that they would not be here.

A video of unknown origin is already circulating on the Internet: a surveillance camera allegedly installed on one of the Sochi beaches recorded a bright flash of light in the night sky. Presumably, it occurred precisely in those moments when the RA-85572 board lost contact with the ground.

Representatives of the emergency response headquarters say that approximately half an hour passed between the time the plane disappeared from the radar screens and the moment of recording. This video “has nothing to do with the Tu-154”, and it is premature to talk about an emergency situation on board...

Looks too much like Egypt

Nobody could have known that the Tu-154 would head towards Sochi instead of Mozdok, which means they couldn’t have settled in a secluded place with MANPADS in time, some commentators argue. The most convenient disposition: to shoot “after” from a motor boat, others think. This unscheduled landing in Adler is significant in another respect: if there really was an explosive device on board the Tu-154, and indeed a timer was set to activate it, it is possible to calculate where “according to plan” the plane was supposed to explode . And who would benefit from it? Flights to Syria are carried out over the Caspian Sea, with a flight over Turkey - through the airspace of Iran and Iraq.

The sudden loss of communication with the ground (before this, the pilots were completely calm and did not mention any flight difficulties), as well as the scattering of debris within a radius of 15 kilometers, are the main arguments in favor of the version of a terrorist attack. And also - an alarming similarity with the plane crash that happened in the fall of 2015 over the Sinai. Then, as the investigation found out, the explosive device had been planted in advance in the luggage compartment. After the Egyptian disaster, the version of a terrorist attack was not voiced for a very long time. Is it the same now?

An unnamed officer who serves on the Chkalovsky shared with the media: in fact, the cargo of military aircraft is selectively checked by flight engineers; there is no thorough inspection. Special mail is not inspected at all. In addition, the serviceman does not rule out that something could have been planted in the medicines that Doctor Lisa was carrying: “It is unknown who collected this cargo and how; the Ministry of Defense had nothing to do with it.”.

Officially, security circles currently deny the version of the terrorist attack. And this is understandable. If, after all, the version of the terrorist attack is confirmed, it will literally blow up the reputation of the Ministry of Defense. It was impossible to bring anything into Chkalovsky, a guarded military facility, security officials say. All passengers and their luggage were carefully checked. The refueling was unscheduled; no one could deliberately “meet” the plane there. No food was served on board. Outsiders were not allowed in; in general, only people with the appropriate form of clearance had the right to approach the military aircraft. In Adler, the plane was under guard; two border guards and a customs officer boarded; only the navigator went outside; No outsiders were involved in refueling - only regular personnel.

There are speculations online that, despite all the counterarguments, the terrorist attack option will probably become the most popular in the near future. And the real state of affairs will not matter here - this will be the only version that will allow us to relieve responsibility at least to some extent. How can you prevent a MANPADS from being fired from an inflatable boat?

Regarding the radius of debris scattering, the head of the Ministry of Transport Maxim Sokolova the answer is simple: "The current is big". Water hammer when colliding with a water surface, other commentators add. Such force that the bodies of the dead were torn into pieces...

Or maybe Tu is outdated?

The Tu-154B-2 aircraft that crashed into the Black Sea was produced 33 years ago. Experts say that if handled properly, this is not a long time for an aircraft of this class. In December 2014, the airliner underwent a major overhaul at its home plant in Samara, and in September of this year it underwent scheduled maintenance. The reserve of flight and calendar resources was sufficient. Similar aircraft in civil aviation are indeed already being written off, but military aircraft are used much less frequently and therefore serve longer.

Obviously, it is pointless to talk about the causes of the disaster now: it is necessary to wait for the inspection of the aircraft wreckage, fragments of the destructive elements (if they are found), the results of the forensic examination, and the decoding of data from the “black boxes” (which also still need to be found). There is a serious problem with the latter: as it turned out, the recorders were not equipped with acoustic beacons. Finding them will require “area surveying of the bottom topography using high-resolution side-scan sonars” and months of work… “with an implicit result.”

So far, in parallel with the search work, a group of investigators is working at the Chkalovsky military airfield. Technical documentation, fuel samples are being confiscated, witnesses are being interviewed - everyone who was involved in preparing the Tu-154 flight, and military units from which cargo was previously sent on this plane are being checked. It is known that in addition to the personal belongings of the 84 passengers, there was military equipment and special mail on board.

According to Interfax, Joseph Kobzon and Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova were supposed to fly to Syria on the same plane. The singer was forced to refuse to perform in front of the military because... goes for treatment, the ombudsman had to go on a business trip to Crimea.

Without interruption for an hour

The search operation is ongoing around the clock. Rescuers and divers from the State Central Airmobile Squad "Tsentrospas" and the Center for Special Risk Rescue Operations "Leader", who were sent to the Krasnodar Territory by the Ministry of Emergency Situations, have not stopped working for the second day. The IL-76 delivered specialists with experience in working at great depths to the search operation area - with specialized diving equipment, equipment for deep-sea work, mobile pressure chambers and Falcon underwater guided vehicles. In addition, a task force from the Central Asia Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia and Tsentrospas forces arrived in Adler: 45 people and 3 units of equipment. A group with a total number of personnel of more than 3 thousand people, 200 pieces of equipment, 30 sea vessels, 7 aircraft, 12 helicopters and 20 unmanned aerial vehicles was involved in eliminating the emergency situation.

7 aviation helicopters of the Southern Regional Center of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia are in readiness. After large structures of the liner are discovered, which searchers believe are at depth, they will be examined by 48 divers.

During the day, search engines managed to examine more than 10 kilometers of the coastal zone; search sectors with an area of ​​240 square meters were checked from the air. km; YURPSO and GIMS boats examined 100 square meters. km. 5 portholes, a fragment of the casing, oxygen cylinders, seat parts, a landing gear wheel and a spare ladder have already been raised to the surface. Found bodies and fragments of bodies are delivered to the shore and handed over to representatives of the Ministry of Defense. Alas, there are no survivors.

Video of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia

With all understanding of the great mission that the musicians of the Alexandrov Choir, and Doctor Lisa, and everyone who was on board the Tu-154 flying to Latakia took on, perhaps it is worth asking the question about the need to mix PR and war. If you don’t go well with bright events, let’s remember the recent surrender of Palmyra, especially painful after Valery Gergiev’s festive concert, and the cruise of the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, which surprised everyone not so much with black smoke, but with how many valuable aircraft it dropped into the Mediterranean Sea. It can hardly be denied that the orchestra flew not only to raise the morale of our military, but also to glorify the victories of our army at home “under the cameras” flying on the same side.

Is it possible to avoid the deaths of Russian civilians and military personnel, whose number has already exceeded a dozen, without ending our participation in Syria? War always entails the death of civilians and military personnel, even outside the front line. For the death of military personnel, there is even such a terrible concept as non-combat losses. In the best armies in the world, employees blow themselves up in military camps and die from disease during redeployments. So in this case - regardless of the reasons for the plane crash, the death of outstanding passengers occurred due to our participation in the war. And if we saved Syria from collapse and the emergence of a new source of chaos in the Middle East, then now is the time to get out of there or freeze our participation and not get into a second Afghanistan.

December 26 has been declared a day of national mourning in Russia. The editors of Our Version express condolences to the families and friends of all those who died in the Tu-154 plane crash. Bright memory.

On December 25 at 5.20 am, the Tu-154B-2 of the 223rd flight detachment of the Ministry of Defense, after refueling in Sochi, flew to Latakia and disappeared from the radar within a few minutes. There were 92 people on board the plane: 8 crew members, artists and employees of the Alexandrov Academic Song and Dance Ensemble, including the artistic director of the group Valery Khalilov, 9 Russian journalists - film crews from the First TV Channel, NTV and Zvezda, as well as accompanying persons, including the famous philanthropist, chairman of the Fair Aid Foundation, Dr. Elizaveta Glinka, director of the Department of Culture of the Ministry of Defense Anton Gubankov and other employees of the ministry. The artists were supposed to give a New Year's concert for the military from the Khmeimim airbase; Doctor Lisa accompanied a shipment of medicines and humanitarian aid for a hospital in Latakia.

As of the morning of December 26, 12 bodies of the dead were recovered from the water. The search operation in the area of ​​the plane crash continues.

The FSB has named four main working versions of the Tu-154 crash of the Ministry of Defense. This is “the entry of foreign objects into the engine, low-quality fuel, resulting in loss of power and engine failure, piloting error, technical malfunction of the aircraft.”

“At present, no signs and facts indicating the possibility of committing a terrorist act or sabotage on board an aircraft have been received,” Interfax quotes a message from the FSB Public Relations Center. It was established that there were 150 kg of cargo on board, including food and medicine, but there was no military or dual-use cargo or pyrotechnics among them. It also follows from the message that the landing of the airliner in Sochi was unplanned; it was assumed that it would refuel in Mozdok, but there were unfavorable weather conditions there on Sunday night and the board was redirected to Adler. Upon landing, the plane was taken under guard by the military and border guards; during refueling, one employee of the Border Service of the FSB of Russia and one employee of the Sochi Customs came on board, and the crew commander and flight engineer exited the plane to supervise the refueling.

Previously, both the military and the Ministry of Transport called the version of the terrorist attack unlikely. Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Monday afternoon that so far “not a single version is being developed” and the version of the terrorist attack is not in the forefront. The military also dismissed the possibility of a malfunction of the aircraft, which, although not new, had a service life and had undergone several major overhauls.

The investigation has identified eyewitnesses to the plane crash and is studying the video recorder, the FSB also reported. On Sunday, media reported that surveillance cameras captured a flash over the Black Sea near Sochi airport. An Interfax source at the operational headquarters for eliminating the consequences of the disaster said that the flash occurred half an hour after the plane disappeared from radar screens and was not related to the crash. At headquarters, the records of the outbreak were carefully studied, he added. He called speculation that an emergency situation could have occurred on board, even leading to an explosion, as premature: “It is necessary to bring the engines to the surface and study their condition. It is also necessary to carefully study the data from the radar and information stored on the flight recorders. Only after this can any objective versions be built.”

Tu-154 crash Ministry of Defense

Earlier it was reported that the Tu-154 did not make contact when it was at a distance of 6250 m from the end of the airport runway. Divers found the hull of the airliner on Monday afternoon at a distance of 1.7 km from the coast at a depth of 27 m, an Interfax source reported. Before that, he was discovered by sonar. According to preliminary data, the plane was severely damaged. According to the agency's interlocutor, a radio buoy has been placed at the site where the aircraft was found, and the search operation area has been localized. The plane's black boxes, which, according to Kommersant, were not equipped with radio beacons for reasons of secrecy, had not been found at 14.30 Moscow time. In the morning, the Ministry of Defense reported that individual fragments of the aircraft body, the bodies of 11 people and 154 fragments of bodies were found; the search was complicated by the complex bottom topography and a wide range of depths. According to TASS, the fuselage is located 1.5 km away in the Black Sea abeam of Khosta.

Several of the dead passengers, but not all of them, were wearing life jackets, a source informed of the search operation told RIA Novosti. According to him, this means that people in vests were preparing to evacuate.

The Russian Ministry of Defense soon denied rumors about life jackets on passengers of the crashed Tu-154. “All the rumors, with reference to anonymous sources, that the passengers of the crashed Tu-154 plane were supposedly wearing life jackets are shameful insinuations that are absolutely untrue,” Interfax quoted the department as saying.

At the Samara OJSC Aviakor - Aviation Plant, investigators seized documents on the fallen Tu-154, the press service of the Russian Machines holding told Interfax. “The company’s employees who participated in the work on the aircraft are providing the investigators with the maximum possible assistance,” the company’s representative assured and explained that studying technical documentation in such cases is a standard procedure.

The Ministry of Defense previously reported that the aircraft that died was produced in 1983, the aircraft was last repaired on December 29, 2014, and scheduled maintenance was carried out in September 2016. The plane belonged to the 223rd flight detachment of the Ministry of Defense, which operates passenger aircraft in the interests of the military department. According to a Vedomosti source close to the Ministry of Defense, the aircraft had a significant - more than half of the assigned - flight resource reserve (number of takeoffs, landings and flight hours) and a sufficient calendar resource reserve (the period during which operation is permissible). This modification has not been used in civil airlines for a long time, but military flight hours are much lower than in commercial airlines, he explained.

The plane was not overloaded, and there were no serious emergency situations when taxiing to the runway before takeoff, Kommersant writes, citing interviewed sources and fragments of conversations between the crew and the dispatcher posted on the Internet. 2 minutes 44 seconds after takeoff, the dispatcher informed the crew about an oncoming plane that was landing. The transport operator confirmed receipt of the command, but within seconds did not respond to the call from the oncoming aircraft, the newspaper writes. After this, the Tu-154 began to be called on all frequencies, but it did not respond and its mark on the radar screens disappeared.

The pilot who flew the Tu-154 said that during this time the crew had to turn off the headlights, retract the landing gear, as well as the flaps - first half, up to 15 degrees, and when reaching a speed of 360 km/h - completely. In the first two minutes, the plane had to be transferred from takeoff to flight configuration and continue to climb to an altitude of 1200–1500 m. The publication’s interlocutor considers this stage of takeoff to be relatively calm. Military pilots interviewed by Kommersant do not rule out the possibility of a terrorist attack. But a high-ranking source of the newspaper in the security forces explained that every Russian plane flying to Syria is being monitored by allies and the military of NATO countries: “Even if we wanted to conceal the terrorist attack on board, it would have been recorded and immediately made public by our neighbors in the region.” . He added that the plane did not hit the water, but dived, going to the bottom relatively intact, which, according to him, also indicates the absence of external influence. Oil stains began to appear on the surface of the water at the crash site only at noon, and luggage and fragments of bodies and skin began to float even later, he added, they were carried over a large area by the current.

The crash of the Tu-154 aircraft of the 223rd flight detachment of the Russian Ministry of Defense became one of the biggest tragedies of the past year. There were 92 people on board the liner, all of them died. In each such case, the emergence of different versions of what happened is inevitable. Lenta.ru tried to figure out what was happening.

NB: Everything said below about the causes of the plane crash is a presentation of versions that have not yet been officially confirmed. 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.

Circumstances

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 aircraft had 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 1,000 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 carries out irregular cargo and passenger transportation, as a rule, of military personnel. 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 order of the President of the Russian Federation dated January 15, 1993 No. 37-rp “On supporting the activities of the 223rd and 224th flight detachments of the Russian Ministry of Defense" for air transportation in the interests of government agencies.

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 airliner took off from Sochi at 05:25 and fell, according to available data, spending two minutes in the air before the crash.

The flight's destination was the Russian Khmeimim airbase in Syria. The plane of the artists of the Alexandrov military ensemble, journalists and the 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.

Versions

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 - 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-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 may approach a century - they will remain in the Air Force until at least 2040 -s.

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 Tu-154 military transport aircraft of the Russian Ministry of Defense was flown by an experienced pilot Roman Aleksandrovich Volkov. Roman Volkov is a first class pilot. The total flight time is more than three thousand hours,” the military department told a TASS correspondent.

Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Petukhov, the navigator of the crashed Tu-154B-2, took part in the rescue of "" 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 the “B” version, 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 dismiss the version out of hand possible tragic mistake. 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, given the political situation, the possibility of a terrorist attack cannot be ruled out, 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 Mozdok, and if they intended to attack him during 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 drops sharply downwards, 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 is being transferred to Sochi - deep-sea divers from all four fleets, with special equipment and underwater vehicles.

What led to the crash of the Tu-154?

Not all experts support the version that problems with the flaps could have been the only cause of the Tu-154 crash.

People have noticed that authorities are increasingly blaming the “human factor”—the dead pilots—for plane crashes.

Among the main reasons for the crash of the Tu-154 near Sochi, the version of a malfunction or error when retracting the flaps came to the fore. However, not all experts support this point of view. Some of them are sure that the flaps alone could not have been the sole cause of the disaster, others point out that emergency situations could have happened to the flaps for various reasons, and, in general, it is premature to draw conclusions.

A Tu-154 Ministry of Defense aircraft crashed on Sunday, December 25, over the Black Sea. 92 people died. According to the route, he was supposed to fly from Moscow to Syrian Latakia with refueling at Mozdok airport. However, weather conditions forced a change of route, and the plane landed at Adler airport. Here it was refueled, and at 05:25 Moscow time the plane took off from Sochi, and already at 05:40 it disappeared from the radar screens.

Less than two hours after losing contact with the crew, news agencies reported the incident. At the same time, it became known that among the passengers there were journalists and musicians, including the Alexandrov ensemble, which was supposed to perform a New Year’s concert program for the military personnel at the Khmeimim airfield. A little later, information appeared that doctor Elizaveta Glinka, known as Doctor Lisa, was flying to Syria on this flight.

The aircraft, built in 1983, has flown 6,689 hours. The last repair, according to the military, took place in December 2014, and scheduled routine maintenance began in September 2016. On that tragic day, there were 84 passengers and 8 crew members on board.

All search and rescue services of the Ministry of Defense and other departments were involved in the search for the plane. An oil slick was found 6-8 kilometers from the coast. Rescue ships headed to the area. Even then, experts expressed the opinion that “those on board the Tu-154 had practically no chance of survival.” A criminal case was opened into the crash. On behalf of the Chairman of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, the case was transferred to the central office of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation.

A few hours after the crash, rescuers found the first wreckage of the Tu-154 in the Black Sea. Their scatter was relatively large: some fragments were picked up 1.5 km from the coast, the landing gear of the aircraft was found 6 km from the coast, and some debris and personal belongings of passengers were found at a distance of up to 15 km from the ground.

At 10:16 a.m., the Ministry of Defense released a list of passengers and crew members. The official representative of the military department, Major General Igor Konashenkov, said that the first victim had been found. The body was found six kilometers from the Sochi coastline and lifted aboard a rescue vessel.

Experts initially considered two main reasons for the Tu-154 crash: a technical malfunction of the aircraft and pilot error. The version of a malfunction immediately came to the fore. The pilots' error was considered "unlikely" since they had "extensive experience flying aircraft of this type and significant flight hours." Weather conditions in the area of ​​the crash were also favorable. However, even then, among the possible causes of the plane crash, experts named asynchronous retraction of the flaps, which occurs if a wire break occurs.

By 15:00 Moscow time, 10 bodies were recovered from the water, some of them in the form of fragments. Sochi blogger Alexander Valov shared the opinion of the Ministry of Emergency Situations employees - if someone survived a plane crash, then it is almost impossible to survive in icy water.

Almost immediately, the Internet began to discuss the version of the terrorist attack. By evening, a video of a bright flash in the sky, recorded by one of the Sochi video cameras, appeared on YouTube. However, news agency sources in the intelligence services stated that the version of the plane crashing as a result of a terrorist attack is not among the priorities.

No one knew in advance that the plane would be refueled in Sochi, and not in Mozdok. Only two border guards and one customs officer boarded the plane in Adler, and only the navigator left the plane to control the refueling. No food was served on board, and refueling was carried out by regular personnel.

On Monday, the sonar of one of the rescue ships recorded a structure similar in outline to the fuselage of an airplane, approximately 1.5 km from the coast at the bottom. The first of the flight recorders was also discovered at the plane crash site at a depth of 17 meters.

On Tuesday, federal media sources reported that no traces of explosives or evidence of external influence on the airliner were found on the bodies of the dead raised from the water, as well as on the fragments of the plane. At the same time, sources stated that the video recording of the flash near the crash site was made almost half an hour after the Tu-154 crash.

By mid-day, all key elements of the aircraft had been found, and the location of two more flight recorders had been established.

By evening, technical data was made public. It became known that the crashed plane fell into the Black Sea at a speed of more than 500 km/h. The crash occurred when the pilots were removing the mechanization. At the same time, the plane was flying at a high pitch angle. Apparently, he fell off the echelon during a maneuver to the right. As a result, at the end of the turn, he collided with the surface of the water with a left roll. The version of the disaster associated with an error in the piloting of the aircraft became a priority.

On Wednesday, the pro-Kremlin portal Life published an alleged fragment of a transcript of conversations between the Tu-154 pilots at the last minute before the crash. From these materials it follows that an emergency situation occurred with the aircraft's flaps. The co-pilot allegedly says: “Took the struts, commander” and immediately after that exclaimed “Uh-oh!”, then the alarm sounds and the co-pilot shouts: “Flaps,... what the...!” Next, he informs the commander that the plane is falling. A proximity warning signal also sounds. However, other sources question the reliability of this recording.

Meanwhile, the general director of the Airport civil aviation association, Viktor Gorbachev, considers the version of the Tu-154 crash due to problems with the flaps to be very doubtful. As the expert told a Rosbalt correspondent, there is a possibility of such a reason, but it is minimal.

“We must not forget that the plane had already been flying for two and a half hours from Moscow, and there were no problems with the flaps. Therefore, I don’t really believe in this version,” said Viktor Gorbachev. The expert recalled that initially up to 7-8 versions arose, but, in his opinion, now three remain the most likely. “The first version is a problem with kerosene. But supposedly the kerosene was checked, and everything turned out to be fine. The second version is the separation of the engine blades and the engine explosion. And the third version: an overload was possible,” Viktor Gorbachev listed.

Aviation expert and flight safety specialist Alexander Romanov agrees with this opinion. As he told Rosbalt, problems with retracting the flaps could not have been the only cause of the crash. “The flaps could have been the cause, but in combination with other reasons: alignments, displacements, overloads,” clarified Alexander Romanov.

The aviation expert emphasized that he does not consider it possible to take the transcript of the pilots’ dialogue “seriously” that appeared in the media. “The people who transcribed the voice recorder do not have the right to publish it. It's even illegal. Therefore, this is still an unofficial version and even resembles some kind of “stuffing,” said Alexander Romanov.

President of the Civil Aviation Partner Foundation Oleg Smirnov also believes that the cause of the disaster could have been problems with the flaps, but he has serious doubts about this. The Honored Pilot of the USSR told the Rosbalt correspondent that one should still wait for the official conclusions of the commission. “The beginning of the catastrophic situation occurred in the air exactly where the flaps are retracted during takeoff in standard mode. This is not difficult to calculate, knowing the take-off time and how long the plane was already in the air,” Oleg Smirnov clarified.

The expert noted that in this area there have already been cases when planes ended up at the bottom of the Black Sea. This is the Il-18 in Soviet times and the Armenian Airbus in 2006. All these disasters were also associated with a loss of speed and the plane going into a tailspin. He explained that the time point for retracting the flaps is most conducive to such a catastrophe, but there are possible options for what exactly happened to them.

“One of the options is to take off without releasing the flaps, which led to the plane losing speed at a certain altitude. Another variant of an emergency situation is possible, given that on the Tu-154 the landing gear controls and the flap are located nearby. If at altitude, instead of retracting the landing gear, the pilot pressed the flap retraction lever, then this is already a death sentence. The third option for a catastrophic situation: when you need to retract the flaps, but they did not retract for some reason. And finally, asynchronous flap retraction is likely. Both left and right must retract absolutely synchronously. Unsynchronized cleaning leads to disasters, even to the point that the plane can turn over on its back,” said Oleg Smirnov.

The honored pilot emphasized that the gossip that appeared in the media and the presentation of possible dialogues between the Tu-154 pilots in no way reveals the true reason for what happened. The commission has the right to make final conclusions only after lifting the wreckage of the plane and scrupulously studying it.

Test pilot, Hero of the Russian Federation Magomed Tolboev noted that the cause of the crash may be related to the mechanization of the wing. As the expert told a Rosbalt correspondent, he adhered to this version from the first day of the disaster.

“Either the flaps were retracted asynchronously, or the flaps were destroyed due to excessive speed: the speed is limited when the flaps are retracted,” said Magomed Tolboev, noting that the final cause can be determined after studying on-board information sources.

Society is actively discussing the incident, but people do not trust pro-government media sources and official reports from departments. The Russians have noticed that authorities are increasingly blaming the “human factor”—the dead pilots—for plane crashes. As a result, further investigation becomes pointless, and other likely culprits of the emergency, possibly remaining on the ground, remain unpunished. It’s easier to blame everything on those who cannot say a word in their own defense.

Dmitry Remizov