The crash of the A320 plane is mercilessly finishing off the tourism business in Egypt. Investigation of the A320 crash in the Alps - facts and versions A320 crash in France

On the night of May 18-19, Airbus 320 Egyptian airline ЕgyрtAir, flying from Paris to Cairo, crashed in the Mediterranean Sea. There were 66 people on board, their fate is still unknown. Life studied the statistics of plane crashes of aircraft of this brand and found out that over 28 years of operation, ten A320: five during flight and five during landing.

In flight

June 26, 1988 An A320 plane crashed at an air show in France, held at the Mulhouse-Absheim airfield. airlines Air France. The aircraft was to perform a demonstration flight at low altitude, thereby introducing the new A320 model to the general public for the first time. During the flight, the plane found itself at a critically low altitude and, in front of hundreds of people, fell into the forest at the end of the runway. As a result of the disaster, 3 passengers died and another 50 were seriously injured.

December 28, 2014 An A320 plane from the Indonesian company Indonesia AirAsia crashed into the Java Sea off the coast of the island of Kalimantan. There were 7 crew members and 155 passengers on board, all of whom died. The investigation found that while flying at flight level, the plane encountered unfavorable weather conditions - thunderstorms and wind shear. The aerodynamic lift led to a loss of speed and the plane stalled into a flat tailspin.

March 24, 2015 A Germanwings Airbus 320 crashed into a mountain in the south of France. The plane crash occurred in the Alpes-Haute-Provence department. There were 144 passengers and six crew members on board the liner, none of them survived. An investigation based on audio recordings of the black box revealed that the co-pilot deliberately caused the crash. When the commander left the cockpit, he locked himself from the inside and began to descend.

August 5, 2009 An accident occurred with an Airbus A320 of the Spanish airline Vueling at Orly Airport in France. The plane was preparing to take off and was scheduled to fly to Alicante. 169 passengers boarded. An engine fire during takeoff led to a sharp braking of the airliner, and people began to leave the cabin in panic. In the resulting crush, 6 passengers were injured.

Upon landing

February 14, 1990 An Airbus 320 of Indian Airlines crashed while landing at the airport in the Indian city of Madurai. Of the 146 people on board, 91 died and the rest were seriously injured. The cause of the disaster was pilot error.

January 20, 1992 Shortly before landing at the airport in Strasbourg, France, an Airbus 320 of the French airline Enter Air crashed. Of the 96 people on board, 87 died. The cause of the incident was the actions of the crew, who incorrectly set the autopilot parameters.

August 23, 2000 An A320 plane operated by Bahrain's Gulf Air crashed into Persian Gulf off the coast of Bahrain. The plane, flying from Cairo to Manama, crashed into the sea while landing. All 135 passengers and eight crew members on board were killed.

On the night of May 2-3, 2006 An Airbus 320 of Armavia airlines, operating a flight on the route Yerevan - Sochi, crashed into the water during landing over the Black Sea. 105 passengers and 8 crew members were killed. The cause of the disaster was recognized as the erroneous actions of the crew.

July 17, 2007 at In Brazilian Sao Paulo, an Airbus 320 of TAM Airlines, flying on the route Porto Alegre - Sao Paulo, crashed while landing on a wet runway. It skidded off the runway, crashed into a fuel depot and caught fire. All 199 people on board were killed.

Airbus A320 is a very popular model. Such a plane in the world takes off or lands every two seconds. Given its mass nature, disasters rarely happen to it.

Until today, there were 4,467 Airbus A320s in the sky. Dry statistics - you can’t argue with them: this is the most sold main liner in the world. And one of the safest: in a quarter of a century there have been only eight plane crashes. Now it's nine. And, by a strange coincidence, at least three are in France.

The first was already during a demonstration flight in 1988. Then the 320th Airbus, a new ultra-modern model, is just entering the market. A few months after receiving the certificate, the launch customer, AirFrance, purchased three aircraft from the concern. Organizes demonstrations at the air show in Mulhouse. Welcoming those gathered, the commander, under the guns of television cameras, decided to walk at low level.

What exactly happened was never clearly answered. According to the official version, the pilot is to blame: he simply did not take into account the operating features of the new aircraft, switched the engines to an increased operating mode too late and therefore was unable to gain altitude. There were 136 people on board. By some miracle, most survived. Three were killed, 98 were seriously injured.

This tragedy almost cost the manufacturing company its reputation. But the dangerous roll did not become fatal: the A320 quickly picks up speed and settles on the wing. Scattered all over the world - from India to Brazil, from Nepal to United Arab Emirates. But on January 20, 1992, the crew again lost control, and again in France.

It was domestic flight Lyon — Strasbourg airlines Air Inter. The plane was ready to land, but suddenly deviated from the course and crashed into a mountain, falling only 20 kilometers short of its destination.

“When I came to my senses, the first thing I saw was an open fire, right in front of me. I started to panic. I said to myself: that’s it, I’ll just burn. I ran to the tail of the plane - or rather, to the part away from it stayed. And there I saw other survivors,” recalls Nicholas Skourias, a passenger on the Lyon-Strasbourg flight.

This is one of nine survivors of this plane crash. 87 people died. It took a decade and a half to find out the causes of the tragedy. At first, airline employees were accused of manslaughter: the air traffic controller, managers and a representative of the general director. But the French prosecutor's office was never able to prove their guilt. They decided that it was all a combination of factors: the weather conditions were bad and the crew couldn’t handle it. But the main thing is that the on-board control system turned out to be imperfect. After what happened, they decided to urgently improve it.

“We made 45 recommendations, including additional training for the crew when programming the autopilot. In addition, now one of the pilots must have at least three thousand hours of flight time. We decided that this figure is optimal,” says former pilot Air Inter airline Gerard Arnoux.

“We carried out separate checks, special tests to find out what the combustion temperature was on board. We determined the figure to be 260 degrees Celsius. We increased the fire resistance of the black boxes so that they retain information even in extreme conditions,” explains another expert.

It is curious that for many years the A320 was assembled exclusively in France, in Toulouse. And only seven years ago, due to increased demand, they decided to expand production by opening a branch in Germany.

It was then, in 2008, that the German airline XL Airways Germany purchased another A320 aircraft, which on November 27 of the same year made a test flight and crashed into the Mediterranean Sea. By another coincidence - off the coast of France. There were seven people on board, all died. The cause of the tragedy was poor maintenance of the aircraft: water got into the sensors. At altitude it froze and disabled the sensors. The disoriented pilots simply lost control of the situation.

“On-board computers respond to the data that is entered into them. But in this case, both sensors were blocked, and the main control panel did not receive information about this at all. The pilot could not do anything,” says aviation expert John Bosch.

After this disaster, conclusions are drawn again and the on-board computer is again improved. The A320 continues to be one of the most popular models on the market. Not only for reasons of safety, but also for the relatively low cost of maintenance for an aircraft of this class.

The plane that crashed on March 24 in the Alps was one of the oldest in the airline's fleet. The 1990 model is perhaps the oldest modification. It passed all pre-flight checks and, judging by the documents, did not raise any complaints from specialists. However, if we take into account the history of plane crashes of this particular model, formal technical serviceability does not always guarantee flight safety.

The A320 airliner crashed in the Mediterranean Sea. The plane was flying from Paris to Cairo. IN international airport the Egyptian capital expected him at three in the morning local time. Approximately 280 km from the Egyptian coast, the plane disappeared from radar screens. There are no fewer mysteries in this story, but more and more shocking details appear. So, according to the Greek Ministry of Defense, before disappearing, the plane made an unexpected sharp turn - 90 degrees to the left, and then 360 degrees to the right.

After which it sharply dropped by six and a half thousand meters. This happened immediately after the A320 entered air space Egypt. There is another, even more stunning detail that may shed light on the investigation. A friend of one of the pilots of the crashed airliner said that a few days before the flight, the crew began to receive threats from unknown persons. An inscription in Arabic allegedly even appeared on board the liner: the next victim - and the flight number.

On board were citizens of Egypt, Iraq, France, Great Britain and Saudi Arabia. A total of 66 people, including crew. Among them are three small children. Psychologists and airline employees are now working with relatives and friends of passengers. Meanwhile, despite the fact that the version of the terrorist attack that occurred on board the plane has not yet been officially confirmed, the disaster has hit Egypt’s tourism even further. “We are very upset. As you know, 80% of hotels in Sharm El Sheikh have already closed, life has almost stopped. We are very sorry for the Egyptians,” - said traveler Jean-Luc Leborgne. Let us remind you that the first blow to Egypt’s tourism business came after it became known that a Russian plane crashed in the Sinai as a result of a terrorist attack - Russia suspended air traffic with this country.

The crashed plane had been in service for almost 13 years. The fatal flight was the fifth in a day, both pilots had extensive flying experience. During the entire period, only one emergency situation occurred on board this liner. Almost three years ago, during a flight from Cairo to Istanbul, the plane returned to its departure airport due to overheating of one of the engines. The airline company itself has at least seven incidents, including several minor plane crashes. At the end of March this year, an Egyptian Airlines plane was hijacked. One of the passengers threatened to blow up the plane if the crew did not take a course to Cyprus. As for today's tragedy, an international commission will investigate it, and it will be announced by the representative of Egypt. France and the United States joined the search operation.

The crash of the Airbus A320-232 airliner of EgyptAir remains in the center of attention of the world media. Almost a week after the tragedy, the authorities of Egypt and France, as well as the structures involved in the investigation, cannot answer the question of what happened to the plane, or at least limit the range of possible versions.

Today it is known that flight MS804 Paris - Cairo, carrying 56 passengers, 7 crew members and 3 security personnel, crashed into the water approximately 290 kilometers north of the Egyptian city of Alexandria.

The ships involved in the search found deformed parts of the fuselage, life jackets and personal belongings of passengers on the surface of the water.

Four days after the disaster, the Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi warned against hasty conclusions: “All scenarios remain open, nothing has been proven.”

In the case of the crash of flight MS804, there are currently a lot of different kinds of reports, which are then refuted, making it very difficult to create a complete picture. The situation can be clarified by the rise of the “black boxes”, if they were not severely damaged.

There are several main versions of what happened, each of which, in turn, is divided into several options.

Version one. Technical difficulites

According to some reports, 7 minutes before the loss of communication with the aircraft, several automatic messages were received from ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System), signaling a variety of problems on board, including a possible fire in the toilet and the main electronics compartment.

In addition, the Greek Minister of Defense Pannos Kammenos stated that before disappearing from the Greek military radar screen, the aircraft made a 90° turn to the left and then a 360° turn to the right before it descended to an altitude of 4,500 meters and then to 3,000 meters before disappearing from radar screens.

Theoretically, these aircraft maneuvers, coupled with automatic signals about problems, may indicate a failure of equipment, accompanied by a fire on board. In this case, the crew could begin an emergency descent, trying to land as quickly as possible.

This version is contradicted by the fact that the pilots never contacted air traffic controllers, did not report any problems, and did not request an emergency landing.

Version two. Air attack

An Agence France Presse source close to the investigation suggested that the death of the plane could have occurred “as a result of human actions.” This does not mean a crew error, but the intervention of third parties, that is, the hijacking of an aircraft.

An example of this is the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York. In addition, he was on a flight from Alexandria to Cairo and, threatening to blow up a dummy “suicide belt,” landed the plane in Larnaca. The invader turned out to be not a terrorist, but an inadequate citizen, but the very possibility of capture looks quite real.

This could explain both the fact that signals about problems came from the area of ​​the pilot’s cabin, and the fact that the crew did not contact the ground - they could simply not be allowed to do this.

This version is contradicted by the presence on board of three Egyptian security officers who were supposed to prevent the terrorists’ actions. At a minimum, this should not have made the catastrophic development of events so rapid.

Version three. Crew error

Crashes as a result of incorrect actions by pilots happen quite often, and therefore this version appears among the main ones.

However, in this case this version does not look convincing. Flight MS804 was operated by an experienced crew, the pilot of the aircraft was a 36-year-old Mohammed Said Shokeir worked for EgyptAir for 12 years. The flight took place along a not very difficult route, in almost ideal conditions. weather conditions. During the time the crew was in touch, the pilots did not report any difficulties.

Version four. Explosion on board

The Egyptian authorities are extremely reluctant to talk about this version, but for now it appears as the most probable.

On May 24, the Associated Press, citing forensic experts, reported that the analysis of the remains of those killed in the disaster. In particular, one of the experts of the investigation team, who personally took part in the examination of the remains, said that the fragments of bodies delivered to Cairo were “so small that among them there is not even a single intact part of the body, such as a hand or head. The logical explanation is that it was an explosion.”

Later Egyptian officials. No traces of explosives have been found on the wreckage so far recovered, it has been reported.

Nevertheless, experts agree that the explosion on board most logically explains the rapid development of the catastrophic situation and the lack of attempts by the crew to contact the ground. In this case, the explosion could have been carried out either by a suicide bomber or with the help of a pre-planted explosive device.

Airbus A320 wreckage. Photo: Reuters

On October 31, 2015, as a result of an explosion on board the Russian company Kogalymavia, operating a flight from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg. All 224 people on board were killed.

November 16, the head of the FSB of the Russian Federation Alexander Bortnikov— a homemade explosive device with a capacity of up to 1 kg of TNT went off. This became clear after traces of an explosive not made in Russia were found on the wreckage of the plane and the belongings of passengers. The ISIS group, banned on the territory of the Russian Federation by a court decision, took responsibility for the terrorist attack. The Egyptian authorities did not confirm the version of the terrorist attack until February 2016, when the country's President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.

The A-320 aircraft of the German low-cost airline GermanWings took off on March 24 from Barcelona. There were 150 people on board and the landing was to take place in Düsseldorf. However, the flight was tragically cut short in the French Alps.

40 minutes after takeoff, the plane was at cruising level 380 (which corresponds to approximately 11,600 meters). Then the plane began an unauthorized descent at a speed of approximately 18 m/s and 8 minutes later crashed into a mountain. During the descent, the airliner's crew did not communicate with dispatchers.

The dispatcher, noticing the unauthorized descent, tried to call the crew, and then announced the alarm. The fighter was lifted into the air, but by that time the A-320, without changing course, had already disappeared from the radar screens.

The wreckage of the airliner was discovered in a mountainous area near the town of Barcelonet. All 150 people are considered dead.

An airline spokesman described the crash as "unexplained." But the information available in the public domain can already explain a lot.

So what was it? From the very first minutes, journalists began to voice numerous versions: engine failure, depressurization of the plane, explosion on board, hijacking of the plane, poisoning of the pilots, failure of absolutely all equipment.

Which of these versions are immediately rejected? Engine failure, explosion on board, failure of absolutely everything and depressurization.

In all these cases, the crew would be able to get in touch, or (in the case of a terrible explosion) the plane’s fall would not be so smooth, without sudden changes in course and altitude.

If even all engines fail (while the plane is at flight level), there is enough time to communicate with dispatchers and many opportunities to make a difficult but accident-free landing.

Refusal of absolutely everything! This is from the realm of fantasy, but even in this case, there is an emergency radio station on board, and pilots can control the aircraft manually. Well, if everything really fails, the fall again will not be so smooth and purposeful.

Poisoning of pilots. Okay, they were poisoned - but then who put the plane into descent? Terrorists? But could they at least shout something into the air? To indicate your intentions?

Depressurization, fire on board. The crew has 15 seconds to put on their oxygen masks. Then they will lose consciousness. Didn't have time to put it on and lost consciousness instantly? Again, who put the plane in descent? The autopilot should not have intervened at this stage. In addition, there have already been cases of loss of consciousness by the crew. The plane continued to fly at a given altitude and heading until the fuel was completely exhausted.

Capturing the crew? So lightning fast that the crew was unable to transmit a distress signal to the ground? Not convincing.

But what happened then? Will the disaster really remain unexplained? Fortunately for potential passengers, no. There is already a solution. Although it is unlikely to add optimism when buying an air ticket.

According to the French Bureau of Air Accident Investigation, the plane was controlled by an autopilot until it hit the ground. This means that the unplanned descent was entered into the computer by one of the crew members. And the entered data provided for the final flight point - the Alpine Mountains.

Newspaper " NY The Times published the solution to the disaster. About 15 minutes before the tragedy, one of the pilots left the cockpit. He could no longer return to his place - the door lock was blocked from the inside. In the audio recording, the pilot can be heard knocking on the door. At first the knocks are quiet. Then stronger. Then even stronger. The pilot asks his partner to open the door, but the answer is silence. During the last minutes, attempts to break into the cabin door can be heard on the recording. Alas, the cabin door is armored.

Meanwhile, the pilot, who was in his seat, enters new data into the autopilot. The plane begins to descend. The countdown of the last eight minutes of the lives of 150 people begins...

Electronic cabin lock. The crew can leave the cabin by loudly slamming the door behind them. You can log back in only after dialing the code combination (as on the intercom panel). There is a video camera in the cockpit of modern airplanes that shows someone standing at the door. The crew has a few seconds to think about whether to let them in or not. If the subject is suspicious, the lock is blocked and the terrorist will not get through. In addition, there is a regular mechanical lock from the inside. Move the latch and the cabin becomes an armored bunker.

What do such strange actions of one of the pilots mean? Terrorist attack? Or the desire to die “beautifully”? Having paid for “beauty” with one hundred and fifty victims?
Perhaps this secret will someday be revealed.

What about the so-called “mysterious” disappearance of a Malaysian Boeing 777 more than a year ago? Not from the same series? Aviation suicides? Or murderers? The Boeing could have disappeared in the depths of the ocean, where one of the crew members gently directed it. And no debris, no kerosene stains! The AviaTitanic lies intact at the bottom, becoming a sarcophagus for hundreds of people. Maybe someday he will be discovered. About a hundred years from now!

Alas, our world is becoming more and more “upside down”, and life is becoming more and more dangerous. It is becoming increasingly difficult to live to old age and die in your own bed. But you still need to live! And you need to fly! It's scary, but you need to fight fears.

Good luck to readers in the air, on land and on water!

Reviews

I would like to thank Dmitry for his articles on aviation accidents. They (the articles) are distinguished by a deep analysis of the possible development of the situation. I evaluate everything from a professional point of view: I have given many years civil aviation, last position - PIC. I would like to know Dmitry’s opinion about the Kazan disaster. The thing is, I don't believe in official version. Not only did I know PIC Salikhov personally, but I also saw his piloting technique. My opinion: this tragedy was not at all the fault of the crew. I believe there was a technical problem. It is enough to recall the problems with this type of aircraft that arose during the initial period of its operation. In this regard, I have the following question: where and in what countries was the “Kazan” aircraft operated before it began carrying out transportation in Tatarstan? Has the management system been improved in accordance with the bulletin? After all, disasters in the initial period of operation of this type were precisely associated with a mechanical defect in the control system. I would be grateful to Dmitry if he deems it necessary to express his opinion. It suits me (and not only me) more than the conclusions of the MAK.

Mikhail, this plane has never been used anywhere!
In Uganda, Brazil, Romania, Bulgaria... According to the findings of the IAC, all
modifications were completed, maintenance was carried out on time, no complaints
there was no technology.
The fact is that even existing PICs on such Boeings are inclined to believe that
crew errors.
There were many rumors in connection with the presence of the president’s son on board
Tatarstan and a star general from the FSB. Witnesses have appeared stating
about the presence of strangers in the cabin. Emergency carriers were lost and found. But everything was officially denied.
What can you say to this? May the earth rest in peace to all those who died!
Sincerely!