An expert explained what could have happened to the plane flying from Crete. What happens after a plane crash: a video was shot of rescuers entering a plane that fell into the water. What happened to the flight

PANIC ON BOARD

“The plane almost crashed” - with this headline, the news about the incident with the North Wind airliner was published in several media outlets. Airbus A321 flew from Heraklion (Crete) to St. Petersburg on May 3, flight N41606. He was supposed to arrive in Pulkovo at 11:35.

One of the passengers, political scientist Dmitry Gavra, published a post on his social network in which he complained that the liner had sharply lost altitude and returned to the island. According to him, the plane “fell three kilometers.” The crew did not tell the passengers that the plane had turned around. People did not know that the plane was landing.

When the plane began to sharply lose altitude, the automation said in a metallic voice “prepare for splashdown.” We were flying over the sea then. That is, this is not a crew, but an automatic machine. It was audible because I was sitting quite close,” Dmitry Gavra told the Komsomolskaya Pravda - St. Petersburg correspondent.

As a source told KP, there is no such voice command in either Russian or English. Pilots don't use that kind of slang either.

Then the pilot managed to level the plane, and we returned and landed at a low altitude. We were stopped somewhere on the outskirts of the airport, there was an ambulance, police and technical services. And then I heard that the conversations were in a raised voice,” says the passenger.

At Heraklion airport, tourists waited for 2.5 hours. They were given water and sandwiches. The airline representative who came out to the people did not speak Russian. So one of the passengers had to help with the translation. According to Dmitry Gavra, no one said what technical problems there were with the plane. They reported that another plane would fly to St. Petersburg.

There were 111 people flying on board the A321, 8 of them were children. The tourists returned home from Crete on a charter flight of Icarus Airlines. The plane landed in Pulkovo at 18:15.

DID THE PLANE CRASH?

Northern Wind confirmed that there were technical problems with the plane. Which ones exactly are not specified. A few hours after the emergency, we reached the assistant to the airline’s chief director.

We don't have any information. that there is something wrong with the plane. “Everything is fine with us,” Anton Maslakov commented to the KP in St. Petersburg correspondent.

We traced the plane's path on the Flyradar24 website, through which you can watch the iron birds online.

Judging by the charts, the North Wind airbus took off from the ground at 06:22 local time. Already at 06:36 it reached its maximum altitude - 7.7 kilometers. And then he began to descend: in the next minute he dropped one kilometer, then in seven minutes another three. The plane returned to the airport at an altitude of three kilometers. The total travel time is 40 minutes. Already at 07:02 the plane touched the ground. The airliner drew a figure eight in the sky.

COMPETENTLY

We talked about the incident with the plane with Honored Pilot of Russia, test pilot Vadim BAZYKIN.

- Vadim Valerievich, is this a sharp decline?

Yes, this is a pretty sharp decline. But we have such a concept among extreme sports enthusiasts, “threshold of death” - this is 8800 meters. If he didn’t score 8, then nothing fatal happened. Scary - it could be, but not fatal.

- What could possibly have happened?

It's impossible to guess. It could have been anything. A modern aircraft has about 130 computers. You will not take off until some kind of display, red or yellow, has gone out.

During takeoff, anything can happen - a minor failure or glitch. The pilot knows what to do when the “failure” command is displayed.

In general, there are not many situations when you need to return to the departure airfield. Even when one engine fails, the flight must be completed. If you decided to return, then it was according to instructions.

- Should flight attendants inform passengers about problems on the plane?

Everything works for flight safety. If the crew was struggling, they might not tell the flight attendants at all, so they wouldn't know. But if they knew, then, of course, they should have informed the passengers.

- Some passengers suggested that there could be depressurization of the cabin.

When depressurization occurs, sensors are triggered and oxygen masks fall out. It's just like airbags in a car. If this does not happen, then there was no depressurization.

- Why is a sharp decline dangerous to health?

Every airplane has a pressure switch. Passengers are accustomed to heights from the ground. When the plane is just taking off before takeoff, the pressure inside is as if it is already at an altitude of one and a half kilometers. When the plane flies at 10 kilometers, passengers in the cabin feel as if they are flying at an altitude of three. If the plane suddenly loses altitude, it automatically maintains pressure. It might cause your ears to get clogged, but it’s unlikely to be something painful or serious.

- One of the passengers claims that he heard a command from the on-board computer. Is this possible?

Passengers can only hear what the flight attendants say. All voice commands are given to the crew inside the cabin, so nothing can be heard. This is already a wild fantasy playing out.

The death of aircraft A-321, operating flight 9268 from Egyptian Sharm el-Sheikh to Pulkovo with 217 passengers and seven crew members on board, became the largest aviation disaster in the history of Russia and the USSR. In the Soviet Union, the worst air accident occurred in the Uchkuduk area on July 10, 1985. Then, as a result of the crash of a Tu-154 flying from Karshi to Leningrad, 191 passengers and nine crew members were killed.

From the very beginning, the death of flight 9268 of the Kogalymavia company (Metrojet) was accompanied not only by unverified information, but also by outright fabrications. In the first hours after the tragedy, Arab news agencies reported, citing some rescuers operating at the crash site, that the A-321 fell apart into two large parts and groans and requests for help were even heard from the tail. A little later, some representatives of the Islamic State claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack on board a Russian plane. This statement was immediately picked up by foreign and some domestic media.

On the fateful day, Airbus A-321 took off from the Egyptian airport at 6:51 Moscow time (3.51 GMT), but already at 7.14 (4.14) it did not contact Larnaca airport, and a few seconds earlier the flight disappeared from radar screens.

As a result of the search and rescue operations that began, it was established that the wreckage of the plane, scattered over an area of ​​16 to 20 square kilometers, had characteristic signs that the Airbus had collapsed in the air. Let us recall that the wreckage of the Malaysian Boeing 777, which was traveling on flight MH-17 and died over the south-east of Ukraine, was spread over an area of ​​more than 50 square kilometers. Already on November 1, the Federal Air Transport Agency and the Interstate Aviation Committee confirmed that the destruction of the A-321 occurred while still in the air.

At this moment, despite the fact that the flight recorders, also known as “black boxes,” were not only found by rescuers, but are already being decrypted, data on the flight parameters of the A-321 Kogalymavia is available only from the FlightRadar24 Internet service.

At 7.12 (4.12) the plane was at an altitude of 10,200 meters (33,500 feet), continuing to climb in order to reach the flight level to Pulkovo Airport. The flight speed was approximately 750 kilometers per hour (just over 400 knots), and the vertical speed was constant. But at exactly 7.13 (4.13) the flight speed dropped to 170 kilometers per hour (just over 20 knots) and, according to calculations by the aviation-safety.net resource (the diagram was obtained as a result of processing FR24 data), the vertical speed became equal to 6000 feet per minute or 30.48 meters per second (a negative reading means the plane is descending). This was no longer a decline or a dive, but actually a fall. At this point, the A-321, having lost 5,000 feet, was at an altitude of about 8,600 meters (28,375 feet).

To summarize, for 22 seconds the plane actually tried to stop its fall and begin to climb, stalling each time. But then its vertical speed increased to such levels that the vehicle reached maximum angles of attack and, accordingly, prohibitive overloads. Next - the fall and destruction of A-321.

Note that the given vertical speed indicators were obtained from processing data from the FlightRadar24 service and in reality could be lower.

There was a report in the media that the plane's crew allegedly turned to air traffic controllers for help. According to some sources, he reported some kind of malfunction, according to others, he requested permission to land. But both Egyptian and Russian authorities deny that such a conversation took place.

In the first hours after the tragedy, evidence emerged that the deceased A-321 had engine problems, which the pilots repeatedly reported to their management. True, on the evening of October 31, representatives of the carrier stated that there were no complaints, the airliner underwent all routine maintenance in a timely manner.

Versions

The Military-Industrial Courier observer was able to communicate with employees and personnel of companies operating similar passenger airliners, as well as representatives of Russian government bodies responsible for control in the aviation sector.

Most of the interlocutors unequivocally stated that they would not draw conclusions at least until the transcripts of the flight recorders were announced, but agreed to provide explanations on the already existing facts.

Judging by aviation-safety.net, although there was a sharp decrease in speed, one can hardly talk about problems or failure of one of the IAE V2500 engines. In this case, the plane could not climb several times before falling. According to one of the representatives of the airline - the operator of the A-321, this at least indicates that not only the power plants maintained traction, but also the automatic propulsion system worked.

We can say that for 22 seconds the autopilot of the airliner tried to fend off something that, according to one of the interlocutors, “was almost impossible to fend off.” But then, instead of stabilizing the airliner, the automation, unable to cope, sent the plane into a sharp climb, which led to prohibitive overloads, reaching critical angles of attack, stalling (possibly a spin) and structural destruction.

The reasons for the impact that led to the death of the Airbus could be either mechanical problems with the elevators or stabilizer, or a failure of the automation itself, also known as the EDCS (electronic remote control system). It is possible that the pilots, faced with a malfunction in the control system, tried to hold the plane on their own, countering the impact.

But a mechanical failure of the rudders or stabilizer could only lead to the plane crashing. Gaining altitude in this case is unrealistic. And even a partial failure of the control system causes the occurrence of so-called self-oscillations, to which the above data on vertical speed are very similar.

True, almost all those interviewed questioned the possibility of a failure of the EMDS, pointing out that this had not happened during the operation of the A-321, and that the Airbus control system itself was very reliable and its most important elements were duplicated.

Industry representatives were also quite skeptical about the possible destruction of the aircraft by anti-aircraft missile systems, as well as the detonation of a device placed on board by terrorists. A missile hit, as shown by the example of the Malaysian Boeing 777, would lead to instant destruction of the structure and the fall of the remains of the aircraft over a sufficiently large area, the same can be said about the use of IEDs.

conclusions

The tragedy of flight 9268 is still awaiting investigation. While the data from the flight recorders has not been published, debris is being collected. The remains of the A-321 are laid out ahead, but now not only experts of varying degrees of awareness, but even various officials are drawing attention to the fact that the crashed airliner outlived four owners and the car is already 18 years old - there is no place for such things in the fleets of Russian carriers, the domestic aviation industry must be raised .

The A-321 is the largest aircraft of the A-320 family, which is considered the record holder for the number of aircraft produced and in operation. "Three hundred and twenty-first" is capable of transporting from 170 to 220 passengers over a distance of up to 5,600 kilometers. At the same time, the Superjet carries from 98 to 108 passengers with a range of just over three thousand kilometers (or 4,500 in the Long Range version). Theoretically, the newest Russian MS-21, the first flight of which has not yet taken place, should have close indicators to the “three hundred and twenty-first” put into operation in 1994. Tu-204/214, also capable of carrying over 200 passengers over a distance of six to seven thousand kilometers (depending on the model), are operated by only a few airlines (the largest fleet is at SLO Rossiya and Red Wings - 12 and 8 aircraft respectively).

Alas, one thing is already clear: the tragedy of flight 9268 will be used for all sorts of loud statements for a long time, and the rise of the domestic aviation industry requires painstaking, hard work.

Comments

KP/SS , 23:21, November 2, 2015

The plane can be destroyed by a terrorist attack from outside (to prevent which inspections and security services are used), but this is a stupid, let's say, clumsy job. But if service specialists are involved in a terrorist attack, or rather an authorized specialist does a three-second job - he places a device smaller than a matchbox or a “lighter”, most importantly, on the desired unit, then the disaster will occur as a technical malfunction. For example, as a version: - the use of a micro explosive device with an SMS receiver, the size and appearance of a lighter. A technician opened a hatch, another, a third on the engine, this is his technological responsibility, look at the oil level, there at the condition and absence of leaks, etc. All this happens quite quickly and in the usual way (there is no flight mechanic or flight engineer in the crew). Let’s say you opened an extra hatch on the engine pylon and stuck a micro device on the fire hydrant. During the flight, a micro explosion occurred in the engine pylon: the fuel wire to the engine is destroyed, the fuel gushes and burns (there is no fire-fighting system in that area), hydraulic system pipes are destroyed and control of the aircraft fails. Before the plane crashes, this place will all burn out and melt (above the engine), no traces of a terrorist attack will be found there (especially since there will be destruction from the impact with the ground and, again, a fire - after all, the fuel in the wing will not go anywhere). Yes, what can I say: -1000 options for stowing a modern aircraft and it will look like a technical malfunction. Imagine - a joystick controls a computer, there is a program in it, the computer receives parameters from gyroscopes, aneroid sensors and aircraft systems. All this, although duplicated 2 or 3 times, ends in the cockpit area. Next, via optical fiber (via laser), control signals are sent (similar to routers) to electronic devices on power steering and steering surfaces. Any failure (lightning strike, power outage, tiny explosion or thermite fire, or exposure to corrosive acid) at the desired point of interweaving of the internal wiring in the aircraft - and the aircraft will lose control. It’s not just that there is nothing to control it directly (through the steering wheel and mechanical connection, through hydraulic boosters on the surface) as a last chance - it simply doesn’t exist. Airplanes are now not built to be stable (the stabilizer must press down and take away part of the wing's lift), but, on the contrary, to be unstable (to obtain the greatest weight return, i.e., a greater commercial load). Loss of controllability leads to a sharp maneuver with prohibitive overload and destruction (the Airbus does not have the same safety margin as a fighter), so they will not have time to shout into the air. I expressed the direction, and the “bookmark” can be done a week or a couple of months earlier (with the same heavy technical regulations, in the country where it is produced).

Andrey , 01:30, November 3, 2015

Yes, they blew it up, sure enough, the tail flew off the fuselage 8 km, what kind of damage could there be for the tail to be torn off. . And no one will tell us the whole truth so as not to sow panic. They'll say there's a technical problem and voila, they've eaten everything.

Vlad391 , 02:45, November 3, 2015

In principle, anything can be allowed, but it looks too much like extreme conspiracy theory, and most importantly, why all this? On the other hand, considerations about the instability of the aircraft are very serious, and besides, the machine is old and has already broken down. So overload and destruction suggest themselves. We need to produce our own planes and fly them. And at least buy foreign ones new ones, not broken old ones. Transaero with its new cars went bankrupt, but don’t understand who is killing our people for their profits. What loud statements here.

Andrey , 10:16, November 3, 2015

The rise of the domestic aviation industry in the next 20 years, I’m afraid, is not possible. Judging by the level of education of “people with diplomas” who come to science and production after “universities”, they do not even qualify for the Soviet eight-year school. It is necessary to restore destroyed education from primary school. They will become specialists in twenty-five years (if by that time there are still old personnel left from whom it will be possible to learn from experience). I judge by the young engineers and designers who come to work at the Almaz-Antey air defense concern after graduating from universities.

Sergey , 15:57, November 3, 2015

Terrorist attacks are done to intimidate and therefore are public. hiding a terrorist attack behind a malfunction is complete nonsense

Guest , 16:14, November 3, 2015

unstable aerodynamic designs are used on military aircraft, in particular on fighters, to increase maneuverability; airliners, weight return - it has nothing to do with it, this airbus has a normal aerodynamic design. And as for the EDSU - yes, I agree, wiring control by wire is cool, modern, effective, but - in the event of an emergency situation, a computer failure in the control system - this is the end

Vlad391 , 19:41, November 3, 2015

Guest, you see, Airbus is clearly not a fighter, but what the normal aerodynamic design means is not clear. Our Ilas are capable of gliding when all engines fail; I don’t know what about Boeings; aerodynamically they have a lot in common with the Ilas. Airbus is less stable, and taking into account the dependence on avionics and automation, so beloved by Europeans, we get the very thing that you first refute. By the way, statistics show that the ability of our pilots to master the controls of Airbus perfectly leaves much to be desired. Finally, I note that wounds have already been discovered on the corpses of passengers as if from an explosion, and the satellite of our American “colleagues” detected a thermal flash at the moment of the destruction of the board. So there are fewer and fewer questions left.

Guest , 00:44, November 4, 2015

For Vlad391, don’t you notice that you’re writing nonsense?! How can a satellite see the explosion of several tens of grams of explosives?! Or do you think there was an IED weighing a ton? And LifeNews wrote about the explosion and the sauce with a link to a certain anonymous person and quickly trimmed the article. Here, even without this news, over the last 24 hours, all sorts of shit has been spewed out. Does the yellow media drag the grain into your mouth?

Airbus A321 flight 9268 of Kogalymavia Airlines (Metrojet brand) crashed and disappeared from radar on the morning of Saturday, October 31. There were 224 people on board the plane - passengers, children, 7 crew members, all of them were Russians. The airliner was operating a “tourist” flight between Sharm El-Sheikh and St. Petersburg.

The latest information about the disaster can also be read on Twitter using the hashtag #KogalymAvia And #7k9268 .

The Egyptian authorities officially confirmed the plane crash and began searching for the wreckage with the army, while the Turkish aviation authorities reported that the airliner had entered their airspace. At the same time, the media previously stated that the airliner continued its flight, but the official press of Cairo states that the plane crash did occur, and the wreckage of the airliner is in Sinai.

The most eloquent illustration is the Flightradar system, which allows you to track any civilian aircraft in the world that have special transponders. According to Flightradar it is seen that the plane "descended at approximately 6,000 feet per minute (110 km/h) before the signal was lost" 23 minutes after takeoff.

The press also reports that the airliner's crew reported malfunctions; some journalists say that the PIC and co-pilot requested an emergency landing - however, this information has not yet been confirmed.

Let us note that many pilots and aviation experts, speaking about plane crashes, recalled that an engine failure (without destroying the engine or the aircraft) does not lead to the crash of airliners - they can glide even with all engines turned off to the nearest airfield (this has also happened in the history of aviation - media they remember both the emergency landing of the Tu-204 and the “Gimli glider”).

“The plane crashed in a closed military zone. Counter-terrorism operations are being carried out there,” reports VGTRK.

A state of emergency was introduced in northern Sinai in Egypt in connection with the crash of a Russian plane; the Prime Minister of Egypt, rescuers and military personnel went to the crash site.

Reuters reports that "the screams of surviving passengers may be heard at the crash site."

“The CREW OF THE CRASHED RUSSIAN AIRLINER COMPLAINED ABOUT ENGINE PROBLEMS SEVERAL TIMES A WEEK,” news agencies report.

"Egyptian emergency services have begun removing the bodies of those killed in the crash of the Russian A-321 in the Sinai Peninsula," - reports AFP. The disaster site is cordoned off and protected from looters.

"The bodies of five children have been found; the Russian plane that crashed in Sinai has broken into two parts," AFP said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his deepest condolences to the relatives of those killed in the Kogalymavia plane crash, ordering rescuers to be sent to the scene of the tragedy.

“The total flight time of the 48-year-old commander of the plane that crashed in Egypt was 3,682 hours. Of these, Valery Nemov flew 1,100 hours as an aircraft commander,” Lifenews.ru said.

“As it became known, before flying on an A-321 type aircraft, Valery Nemov flew a TU-154. The pilot was retrained at the AmurAir training center located in Turkey,” the press adds, calling the PIC a professional pilot.

It became known that at least one of the passengers on the flight posted a photo of the plane and her husband and daughter before takeoff, writing " we're flying home ".

“According to the Egyptian side, the plane was trying to land at El-Arish airfield,” the Russian Embassy reported.

“As it became known, about a hundred bodies of passengers were pulled out from under the wreckage of a Russian airliner that crashed 100 kilometers from El-Arish in the north of the Sinai Peninsula,” reports Egypt Independet.

“Eyewitnesses say that the plane that crashed in Egypt was burning in the air,” Kommersant FM reported.

The media reported that rescuers found one of the flight recorders - black boxes - at the scene of the tragedy.

President Vladimir Putin declared mourning on November 1 in connection with the crash of a Russian airliner in Egypt.

The bodies of all 17 children were found at the A-321 crash site in Egypt. RIA Novosti reports with reference to a civil aviation representative.

As Gazeta.Ru found out, the travel company Brisco, whose clients were flying on the crashed plane, and the Kogalymavia airline are owned by the same people.

“Either a fire in the central/tail section, or an engine fire spreading throughout the entire nacelle with subsequent thermal destruction of the wing,” they write on a professional pilot forum.

The local Bedouin tribe Al Tayaha saw a Russian Kogalymavia airliner crash on the Sinai Peninsula. According to the nomads, the Airbus A321 burst into flames in the air, in particular, they saw one of the plane’s engines burning.

"Many died in seats wearing seat belts," Egyptian intelligence official/Reuters

The office of the owner of the Kogalymavia airline on Stoleshnikov Lane in Moscow is being searched. Law enforcement officers are seizing documents and electronic media from the office, media reports.

Egyptian aviation authorities do not rule out that the crash with the Russian airline Kogalymavia in Egypt was due to a terrorist attack, CBS Extra reports. “This version is unlikely, since terrorists in the region do not have appropriate weapons - anti-aircraft missile systems, because the plane was at an altitude of more than 6 thousand meters,” experts say.

“A couple of months ago, rockets were fired at Israeli territory from Sinai. In Syria and Libya, Islamists captured dozens of C125 and C200 complexes. In Yemen, firefights are taking place using Point U, and the Saudis have deployed Patriots along the entire border,” they write on social networks.

“According to Ayman al-Mugadem, a spokesman for the Egyptian Aircraft Incident Investigation Committee, the pilot warned ground controllers that the plane had a “technical problem” and needed to land as soon as possible,” Izvestia reported.

Egyptian authorities said no one survived the Russian plane crash, Reuters reported.

Before taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh, the crashed plane underwent the necessary technical checks and no faults were identified, said the head of the Egyptian airport company Adel Mahgoub. “A technical inspection of the aircraft was carried out and its airworthiness was confirmed,” he emphasized.

The Air Niugini plane crash occurred at the end of September.

An Australian diver helped rescue passengers after a plane crash in Micronesia before rescue divers arrived to search for the sinking plane. Air Niugini Flight 73 failed to gain sufficient altitude at Chuuk International Airport on Weno Island. The plane rose to 145 meters and crashed into the lagoon on September 28.

Former diver Adam Milburn, who lives in Micronesia (near Australia), was also on board the crashing plane during an emergency water landing. The man immediately intkbbach rushed to the aid of the victims immediately after landing in the lagoon. Horrifying footage has shocked people around the world, showing US Navy rescuers entering the Boeing 737 after Mr Milburn had already helped evacuate almost all the passengers.

A fisherman from Micronesian Ostrava, Venyo, immediately rushed to help when the plane finally landed in the water off the coast. One by one, Milburn bravely pulled the passengers from the sinking ship, while the Air Niugini crew panicked and were unable to help their passengers. The brave man also returned to the plane with US Navy sailors to check on the survivors and help with the search for the missing.

Rescuers swam the length of the plane, searching for possible victims, until the water in the cabin reached dangerous flooding levels.

“Like everyone else, I was confused: how did we get here? What is happening? What are we doing and should be doing right now in a plane floating on water?” Milburn told ABC.

The man also claimed that after the crash the crew urged passengers to remain in their seats in a sitting position; no further instructions were received by anyone on the sinking board. As soon as the man realized that he should rely only on himself, he grabbed his life jacket and began to help people. Milburn also wondered whether he had a chance to help the Indonesian man who died in the incident (the only passenger on board to die).

I literally touched everyone who came out of the emergency door on the left wing, either helped them into the life raft, or physically carried them, the most important thing for me was that no one fell off the wing and drowned, I was absolutely sure that what I'm doing."

US Navy rescuers helped evacuate the passengers to shore, many with head and neck injuries after being struck by the fall. Milburn told media that crew members were not helpful or even checked the names of passengers.

American journalist Bill James was also on board the sunken plane, and it was he who later called Milburn's actions heroic.

“I know Adam, and I would guess that he would be the last person to call himself anything like a hero, but given that the plane was in the water, and people in a critical situation, I would call his actions heroic,” the reporter noted. .

Air Niugini, the national airline of Papua New Guinea, initially announced that all 35 passengers and 12 crew members had been evacuated safely. However, it later turned out that one passenger had died. Eko Kahyanto Singgi's body was recovered from the sunken plane by US Navy divers, the Micronesian government said.

The Daily Mail has contacted Air Niugini for comment.

Officials investigating the cause of the crash explained that the plane landed in the ocean after overshooting a Micronesian runway. The government said 9 people were injured in the crash, 4 of whom are currently in critical condition.

It is worth noting that on the island near the crash site, people also rushed to help, jumping into fishing boats and heading towards the sinking plane. Later, with the help of US Navy rescuers, local residents used their boats to transport people from the plane to shore.

The exact cause of the accident is under investigation. Air Niugini says reduced visibility due to heavy rain caused the pilot to miss the runway.

The state of Chuuk (also known as Truk) is one of the 4 states of the Federated States of Micronesia, with 50,000 inhabitants over 46 square miles. The plane began to descend near Weno Island in Chuuk Bay, where most of the population lives.