Airplane crash, child at the controls. “Everything was mixed up: snow and things and debris.” What did the plane pilots violate?

3.5 hours after takeoff, crew commander Yaroslav Kudrinsky called his two children into the cockpit - daughter Yana and son Eldar, where, in violation of the regulations, he allowed first his daughter and then his son to sit in the ship’s commander’s chair. This circumstance was ignored by other crew members. In addition, in the cockpit was a friend of the Kudrinsky family, Makarov, also a pilot, flying on the same flight as a passenger.

Before allowing the children to take the command seat, Kudrinsky turned on the autopilot. First, the commander’s daughter, 13-year-old Yana Kudrinskaya, was in the pilot’s seat. She did not attempt to take any action to control the aircraft. After her, the captain’s son, 15-year-old Eldar Kudrinsky, took the helm. The teenager held onto the steering wheel, rocking it slightly from side to side. Everything was perceived as entertainment and adults had no control over the teenager. At one point, the guy shook the steering wheel harder and the autopilot, mistaking this for the pilot’s command, turned off. In one second, the plane became obedient to the teenager, who continued to play pilots.

The light alarm for disabling the autopilot mode went off, but the crew did not notice this, since a design feature of the A310 is the absence of an audible alarm for disabling the autopilot. Once again tilting the steering wheel to the side, the boy put the airbus into a deep roll, which soon reached 45 degrees and caused an overload of about 5g. In the first seconds, both professional pilots for several seconds could not understand the reason for the abnormal behavior of the aircraft. And when the crew members noticed that the autopilot was disabled, they tried to take their seats again.

Contrary to the instructions, the co-pilot, in the absence of the commander in his seat, moved his seat all the way back, which for a long time did not allow him to take a working position due to the overloads that had arisen. And the aircraft commander, due to strong overloads and a large roll angle, could not get into his seat for a long time.

The situation was greatly complicated by the fact that in the left seat there was still the only person who had the physical ability to control the plane - the 15-year-old son of the commander, who received and tried to carry out various, inconsistent and contradictory commands from his father, the co-pilot and Makarov. According to an analysis of the “black box” audio track, Eldar’s attempts to correct the situation were greatly hampered by his lack of knowledge of pilot’s jargon. As an example, the command “Hold the helm!” was given, which the boy took as a command to hold the steering wheel in the extreme right position, while the pilots meant a command to level the plane.

Meanwhile, the roll had already reached 90°, and the plane began to lose altitude. In order to prevent further descent, the autopilot (only the roll automatic was turned off) increased the pitch angle to such an extent that the plane began to quickly lose speed and went into a stall. The co-pilot completely turned off the automatic control and managed to bring the plane out of the stall by lowering the nose. The overload decreased, and the commander finally managed to pull his son out of his chair and take his workplace. The pilots brought the plane into normal flight mode, but were unable to recognize their spatial position in time. Flying over the hill at low altitude, the plane caught on the edges of trees and crashed into the forest near the village of Maly Mayzas, about 20 kilometers southeast of Mezhdurechensk.

Crew negotiations, chronology of events

Symbols used in the text:

PIC - aircraft commander Ya. V. Kudrinsky
Yana is the commander’s daughter, born in 1981.
Eldar - son of the commander, born in 1978.
2P - co-pilot I.V. Piskarev
Makarov - pilot flying to Hong Kong as a passenger
E - one of the pilots in the cockpit

About half an hour before the disaster. The plane flies on autopilot. In the cockpit there are the aircraft commander, the co-pilot and two strangers - the aircraft commander's daughter Yana and passenger Makarov.

17:43:30: PIC [addressing his daughter Yana]: Come sit here now, on my chair, do you want to?
17:43:31: PIC left his workplace
17:43:34-17:43:37: Yana sat down in the PIC chair
17:44:10: Yana: Dad, lift me up [Yana asked to lift her chair up]
2P: Novosibirsk, Aeroflot, 593rd we pass your point at flight level 10,100.
17:47:06: PIC: Well, Yana, will you pilot?
Yana: No!
PIC: Don't press the buttons. Don't touch this red one!
Yana: Dad, can this be played?
PIC: Do you see Novokuznetsk on the left?
Yana: Are we flying so low?
PIC: Ten thousand one hundred meters.
Yana: That's a lot, right?
KVS: A lot...
Yana tries to leave the chair.
PIC: Wait, don’t rush...
Yana: I’m already careful...
17:51:12: Yana left the PIC chair
The son of the aircraft commander, Eldar, appears.
17:51:47: Makarov: The counter is being removed.
17:51:55: Eldar sat down in the PIC chair.
17:52:46: Eldar [addressing Makarov]: Are you filming?
17:52:48: Makarov: I’m filming.
Eldar: Can this be turned?
17:54:25: PIC: Yes! If you turn left, where will the plane go?
Eldar: Left!
PIC: Turn! Turn left!
17:54:35: PIC: So, watch the ground, where you will turn. Let's go left, turn left!
Eldar: Great!
17:54:37: PIC: Off I go, huh?
17:54:39: Eldar turned the helm to the left by 3..4 degrees.
17:54:40: PIC: Is the plane going to the left?
17:54:41: Eldar: Coming.
17:54:42: PIC: Not visible, right?
E:< неразб>
17:54:50: E: Now it will go to the right
17:54:53: Makarov: Set the attitude indicator for him properly.
17:05:05: The plane began to roll to the right.
17:55:12: PIC: What do you want, Yana?
Yana:< неразб>
17:55:15: PIC [addressing Yana]: Why?
Yana:< неразб>
17:55:18: PIC [addressing Yana]: In first class you will only sleep.
17:55:27: PIC [addressing Yana]: Don’t run around there, otherwise they’ll kick us out of work.
17:55:28: From this time on, unnoticed by either the PIC or the co-pilot, a gradual increase in the right roll began.
17:55:36: Eldar [about the plane’s course]: Why is it turning?
17:55:38: PIC: Does it turn itself?
17:55:40: Eldar: Yes.
17:55:41: E: Why does he turn?
17:55:42: Eldar: I don’t know.
17:55:45: PIC: You won’t throw off the course?
17:55:45: Makarov: He’s still moving the zone, guys. [Makarov assumed that the plane was leaving for the holding area]
17:55:46: 2P: We went to the area, waiting.
17:55:48: PIC: Yes?
17:55:49: 2P: Of course.
17:55:50: Makarov: Damn! [Thus Makarov reacted to the rapid increase in vertical overload in the plane]
17:55:52: PIC: Hold it! Hold the helm, hold it!
17:55:55: 2P: Speed!
17:55:56: 2P: In the opposite direction.
17:55:58: 2P: In the opposite direction.
17:55:59: 2P: Back!
17:55:59: PIC: Turn left! Left! Right! Left!
17:56:06: E: Right?
17:56:08: E: You don’t see, or what?
17:56:11: Autopilot disabled.
17:56:14: E: Turn right.
17:56:17: PIC: Right!
17:56:18: 2P: Yes, to the left! The earth is here!
17:56:24: FAC: Eldar, come out!
17:56:26: PIC: Crawl back.
17:56:28: PIC: Crawl back, Eldar.
17:56:30: E: You see< неразб>No?
17:56:34: 2P: Small ores!
17:56:38: PIC: Come out!
17:56:40: E: Come out, Eldar.
17:56:41: E: Come out< неразб>.
17:56:43: E: Come out.
17:56:44: E: Come out.
17:56:47: E:< неразб>.
17:56:49: E: Come out.
17:56:52: E: Come out, I say.
17:56:54: 2P: Full throttle! Full throttle! Full throttle!
17:56:55: By this moment, the PIC had taken his workplace.
17:56:56: 2P: Gave on the gas!
17:56:57: PIC: Full throttle!
17:56:58: 2P: Gave!
17:56:59: E:< неразб>.
17:57:00: E: Full throttle.
17:57:05: E: I gave it gas, I gave it.
17:57:08: E: What is the speed?
17:57:09: E:< неразб>.
17:57:13: E:< неразб>.
17:57:17: E: Yes.
17:57:23: PIC: Full gas!
17:57:25: 2P: The speed is very high!
17:57:27: E: Big, right?
17:57:28: E: Big.
17:57:29: E: I turned it on.
17:57:30: PIC: Okay, that’s it, let’s go out, let’s go out.
17:57:32: PIC: Right! Leg to the right!
17:57:35: PIC: High speed.
17:57:36: PIC: Turn off the gas!
17:57:37: 2P: Cleaned it up!
17:57:42: PIC: Quietly!
17:57:47: 2P: B..., again!
17:57:48: E: Don’t turn to the right.
17:57:50: E: Added speed.
17:57:53: PIC: Let's go out now! Everything is fine!
17:57:55: PIC: Slowly on yourself.
17:57:56: PIC: Slowly.
17:57:57: PIC: Slowly, I say!
17:58:01: The plane collides with the ground.

During the investigation, conducted jointly by Aeroflot and Airbus, changes were made to the aircraft documentation and the Aeroflot pilot training plan. And during simulator flights performed by Russian instructor pilot Vladimir Biryukov together with Airbus test pilots, it turned out that if both pilots were unable to reach the controls, the automatic control system would be able to take over control and quickly restore a straight-line safe flight.

If until now all the stories about plane accidents have been more or less positive, now I’ll tell you about a rare piece of assholery.

Black Box entry:
Commander: Well, Yana, will you pilot?
Yana (sitting in the ship’s commander’s chair): No!
...
The son of the Eldar ship commander appears. Sits in the commander's chair.
Eldar: Can this be rotated?
Commander: Yes! If you turn left, where will the plane go?
Eldar: Left!
Commander: Turn! Turn left!
Eldar: Great!
Commander: Is the plane going to the left?
Eldar: Coming.
Several minutes pass.
Eldar: Why is he turning around?
Commander: Does it turn on its own?
Commander: Hold the helm!
Pilot: Speed!
Commander: Turn left! Left! Right! Left! The earth is here! Eldar, come out! Get out, Eldar! Come out! Come out! Come out!
...
fucked up, which claimed 75 lives due to strangers being in the cockpit

By the way, there was a second reason. It turns out that if you apply a force of 8-10 kg to the side on the steering wheel on an Airbus-310 aircraft, the autopilot is partially disabled. But! Initially, one of the pilots brought two of his children into the cockpit.

So. On March 22, 1994, an Airbus 310 aircraft (F-OGQS "M. Glinka") was flying from Moscow (Sheremetyevo) to Hong Kong. When the flight had already covered a decent part of the journey, PIC Andrei Danilov went to the cabin to take a nap.
Reserve PIC Yaroslav Kudrinsky and co-pilot Igor Piskarev remained in the cockpit.
The captain of the same aircraft, V. Makarov, who was on vacation, and two of Kudrinsky’s children, Yana (13 years old) and Eldar (15 years old), came to “visit” the cabin.
The father gave way to the children.
At first, my daughter sat at the helm for 7.5 minutes. She, despite her father's advice, refused to take the helm. But the son who replaced her followed his father’s order, “Turn! Turn left!”

The result - 63 passengers and 12 crew members died due to the negligence of the professional pilots in the cockpit.

"...It turned out that the airbus fell from a height of 10,100 m, along the steepest possible trajectory, which rarely or almost never happens during plane crashes. The crew did not even have time to transmit anything to the ground. The plane crashed on a mountainside, but for some reason it didn’t touched the tree tops.
22.05; 22.08. By order of the duty service of the Russian Federal Aerospace Search and Rescue Service, an An-12 aircraft of the air defense forces took off from Novosibirsk; from Novokuznetsk - Mi-8 MGA helicopter.
23.30. Information was received from a local resident that burning aircraft debris was spotted in the area of ​​the village of Mayzas (10 km southeast of the city of Mezhdurechensk).
00.06. On March 23, the helicopter commander reported that 8 km south of Mayzas, within a radius of 2 km, he saw burning wreckage of the aircraft.
03.00. From Plotnikov (40 km south of the city of Kemerovo) a mobile detachment (41 people, 12 pieces of equipment) began moving, paving the road.
03.30. An Mi-8 helicopter with ten rescuers on board flew to the crash site from Mezhdurechensk. Finally, the Il-76 of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations delivered fifteen rescuers with the necessary equipment and machinery.

Journalist Vasily Gorbunov made his way to the scene of the disaster along with rescuers. This is what he said
“The first sensation coming is the strong smell of kerosene. You take one look and it becomes an eerie pile of small garbage. It looks like the plane literally crashed to pieces. The smallest fragments are scattered along the hillside in a ribbon a hundred meters wide, stretching for about half a kilometer. The largest fragment of the starboard side that I saw was three by four meters. Bodies Almost everything that was left of the people was strongly pressed into the snow. You can see arms somewhere, legs somewhere, backs somewhere... In such places the hardest thought is why things are more durable than people. Cans of beer, bags, clothes, dollars are scattered everywhere... It’s impossible to take your eyes off the bright painted Easter egg someone was preparing for the holiday..."
...Many passengers remained seated, strapped to their seats. Among the dead, rescuers managed to find two children who were flying on this flight. One of the crew members decided to take them on vacation to show Hong Kong. At that time, no one knew that it was children who played a tragic role in this disaster. Almost nothing remained of the Airbus. More than a million dollars, a lot of jewelry, gold jewelry were found at the scene of the disaster..."

A small fragment from the order (conclusions):
"Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation
ORDER
04/28/95 No. 44
ABOUT THE ACCIDENT OF THE AIRCRAFT A310-308 F-OGQS OF THE RUSSIAN AIRLINE LINES (RAL)
...
The crash of the A310 aircraft occurred as a result of its stalling with a spin and collision with the ground due to a combination of the following factors:
1. Permits from PIC Ya.V. Kudrinsky to take his workplace and interfere with the control of the aircraft by an unauthorized person (his son), who does not have the right and appropriate qualifications.
2. Performing demonstration maneuvers not provided for by the flight plan and flight situation using the autopilot of the PIC who is not at his workplace.
3. The application of forces by an unauthorized person and the co-pilot to the control wheels, interfering with the normal operation of the roll autopilot (this is not recommended by the A310 aircraft Flight Manual), which led to overpowering and disconnection of the autopilot from the aileron control wiring,
4. Unnoticed by the co-pilot and the PIC, the autopilot was disconnected from the aileron control wiring, probably due to:
- the absence of an instrumental alarm system for disengagement on the A310 aircraft;
etc....
...
Minister of Transport V.B. Efimov

This is what air carelessness happens.

On the night of March 22-23, 1994, residents of Mezhdurechensk (Kemerovo region) heard an explosion. At the same time, aircraft number SU593, flying Moscow - Hong Kong, disappeared from the radars of the Novokuznetsk airport. The dispatchers were perplexed: the crew did not give distress signals or report problems, they simply stopped responding to requests from ground services. The disappearance of a plane and the silence of the pilots - in such cases, the alarm is immediately raised and the search and rescue service is involved. So this time, an An-12 aircraft of the air defense forces immediately departs from Novosibirsk to the Mezhdurechensk area, and a Mi-8 MGA helicopter from Novokuznetsk. A local resident was ahead of the rescuers - an hour and a half later he discovered a crashed plane in the area of ​​​​the village of Mayzas (10 km southeast of the city of Mezhdurechensk). This information is soon confirmed by the helicopter commander: from the air, burning wreckage of the airbus is visible, scattered over a radius of 2 kilometers.

There were 63 passengers and 12 crew members on board the plane, all 75 people died. From the very first minutes of the investigation, the disaster began to become overgrown with speculation and versions. Among them there were some absolutely fantastic ones: a plane collided with a celestial body or became a victim of a UFO. Later there were rumors about a terrorist attack and depressurization of the plane, which caused the instant death of the crew and passengers. And rescuers note something strange - for some reason the body of one of the teenagers is in the cockpit. At first, experts suggested that he was thrown there at the time of the disaster. But deciphering the voice recorder recordings sent the investigation in a completely different direction. It began with the words: “Sit in my chair!” Further negotiations left no doubt: there was a child at the controls of the plane.

News agencies with sources in the investigative agencies immediately released shocking information. However, all competent persons unanimously declared: this cannot be true. Only a year later, experts were forced to admit: one of the causes of the disaster was indeed the actions of a teenager who was at the helm.

Vladimir Kofman, Chairman of the Interstate Aviation Committee:

“At that time, as they say, we did not have enough conscience or courage to declare that the plane was destroyed by a child.” But the recording on the voice recorder and further investigation, which lasted a whole year, showed that other options were excluded.

But there were other factors as well. It took specialists a year to study each of them. They had to go back to the moment the ill-fated flight took off from Moscow and trace the path of the plane and the actions of the crew literally minute by minute.

So, on March 22, 1994, flight SU593 Moscow - Hong Kong took off from Sheremetyevo. A310, named « Glinka » , was bought « Aeroflot » in 1992 along with the first batch of foreign-made aircraft. On their basis, the largest Russian airline created a prestigious international transportation division. The A310 was only flown overseas, and these flights required top class pilots. Pilots were required to have an impeccable reputation, at least 1,000 hours of flight time, and speak fluent English. All A310 pilots have been tested and trained by Airbus Industry. Moreover, out of 3000 pilots " Aeroflot sent the best people for training - a total of 16 people. Among them was the replacement PIC (aircraft commander) of the Hong Kong flight, Yaroslav Kudrinsky. On March 22, he shared the cockpit with a very experienced crew. This is the aircraft commander (PIC) Andrei Danilov, on who has almost 10 thousand flight hours, more than 950 of them on the Airbus A310. And the second pilot is Igor Piskarev, whose experience is slightly less. He flew 5885 hours, flew a Tu-134 aircraft as a PIC, and took the helm of the Airbus A310 in October 1993. Yaroslav Kudrinsky himself became the commander of the Airbus A310 in November 1992. Before that, he flew the Yak-40, An-12 and Il-76 aircraft. He flew over 8940 hours, 907 of them on the Airbus A310. The Airbus is equipped with an autopilot capable control the plane throughout the flight. It would seem that a safe flight is guaranteed. Among the passengers are the children of Yaroslav Kudrinsky, 13-year-old Yana and 15-year-old Eldar. Once a year, Aeroflot » provided pilots' families with the right to preferential flights. Captain Kudrinsky decided to take the children to Hong Kong for four days. This was the first trip abroad for the teenagers.

Kudrinsky family, 80s. Still from the National Geographic documentary "A Child at the Control of an Airplane. Air Crash Investigation"

Three and a half hours of flight passed unnoticed. Andrei Danilov took the plane out of the busy Moscow air zone and, having transferred control to Yaroslav Kudrinsky, went to rest in the cabin - he was about to take a return morning flight from Hong Kong to Moscow. The Airbus A310 left Novosibirsk behind and was almost halfway through the 10-hour journey when Captain Kudrinsky invited the children to sit in the pilot’s seat. At this time, Aeroflot's most technically advanced aircraft » went on autopilot.

Yana was the first in the cockpit. The girl does not show much interest in flying the plane, but on the advice of her father she puts her hands on the steering wheel. At this time, Kudrinsky turns the autopilot control switch by 15 degrees, which allows him, without turning off the autopilot, to tilt the plane slightly to the left, which is immediately displayed by a special instrument - the attitude indicator. Small course deviations of up to 15 degrees may not be noticeable visually, but the attitude indicator picks up all deviations of the aircraft and displays them on its monitor. Yana feels the spontaneous movement of the steering wheel and immediately realizes that her father turned the plane. The girl tells him about this and leaves the chair. Captain Kudrinsky returns the plane to its previous course. Yana is replaced by Eldar. Unlike his sister, he picks up the steering wheel with undisguised interest and immediately asks his father if he can turn it too. Kudrinsky Sr. allows and tells his son to look more carefully at the horizon. Eldar tries to turn the steering wheel to the left and notices that it gives in rather tightly, not at all the way it was when Yana was sitting in the pilot’s seat. The teenager pushes harder, but cannot change course - the autopilot keeps the plane in the given direction, but Eldar does not know about it. Then the PIC applies the same technique - he again switches the autopilot course 15 degrees to the left, using the same switch. The helm in Eldar’s hands smoothly turned to the left without much effort.

Like last time, Yaroslav Kudrinsky returns the autopilot course to normal mode, thereby stopping the turn of the airliner and the illusion of Eldar controlling the plane. He then turns on the previous navigation mode, which instructs the autopilot to return the plane to Hong Kong. The helm becomes stubborn again, but Eldar continues to turn it to the left. Then he tilts slightly to the right, enjoying the role of pilot. This goes on for just over three minutes. At some point, the teenager shook the steering wheel more than usual, and the autopilot, mistaking this for the pilot’s command, turned off. From this moment on, the huge liner begins to obey the child, but no one notices this yet. The light alarm for disabling the autopilot mode went off, but the crew did not pay attention to it. The pilots did not know about the design feature of the A310: the autopilot of this airliner turns off silently. Eldar was the first to notice the trouble: he saw that the horizon line on the instrument was rising strongly to the right. The roll increased every second, and while the pilots were trying to understand what was going on, it reached 45 degrees - this is more than the maximum permissible values ​​for the A310. In addition, an arc appears on the on-board computer screen instead of a line showing the aircraft's flight path. This usually happens when the airliner is preparing to land and enters the holding area above the airport.

Reconstruction of the disaster

The Airbus travels in an arc at a speed of 650 km/h with a strong roll. The centrifugal force generated by the movement of the aircraft presses everyone into their seats - its effect is twice the weight of a person. Frightened passengers understand the scream; bottles of mineral water and other small things fall from the stewarts' carts. PIC Danilov wakes up in the cabin, realizes that something is wrong with the airliner, tries to get up and go into the cabin, but the overload does not allow him to do this. Kudrinsky Sr. also cannot take the pilot’s seat - the centrifugal force chains him to the side panel. Co-pilot Igor Piskarev strives to take control and manually remove the aircraft from a dangerous situation. But even before the autopilot turned off, he moved his seat all the way back and now cannot take a working position due to the overloads that have arisen. With a jerk he manages to reach the steering wheel and grab it with one hand. The pilot forcefully turns the control column all the way to the left, but the plane does not react. It moves in a steep spiral, losing altitude. The only one holding the helm is 15-year-old Eldar. The pilots have only one thing left to do: try to explain to the child what to do.

The aircraft roll to the right increases, neither the PIC nor the co-pilot noticed this.

KVS: Hold it! Hold the helm, hold it!

2nd pilot: Speed!

2nd pilot: In the opposite direction! In reverse! Back!

PIC: Turn left! Left! Right! Left!

Eldar: Right?

But this turned out to be impossible: Eldar does not understand the jargon of the pilots. For example, the boy takes the command “Hold the helm!” as an order to keep him in the extreme right position, while the pilots meant leveling the plane. The airliner enters a deep dive, and now it is rushing towards the ground at a speed of 200 meters per second. For a few seconds, the overload caused by centrifugal force is replaced by almost complete weightlessness, and everything that was not secured in the cabin and cabin, including passengers, ends up under the ceiling.

Piskarev finally manages to pull the helm towards himself. The airliner goes like a candle into the sky - the co-pilot raised the nose of the plane too much. Overload again, this time 4-fold. The plane is flying too steeply and the engines are starting to lack power. The liner seems to hover in the air. Yaroslav Kudrinsky takes advantage of this moment - he manages to take the pilot’s seat. But the plane goes into a tailspin again and begins to fall from a height of 6 thousand meters. The PIC and co-pilot continue to try to save the aircraft. Using the steering wheel, Kudrinsky almost manages to stop the plane from rotating. The A310 recovers from a spin, but the pilots don't know for sure how much altitude they lost.

From the transcript of crew conversations:

PIC: Full gas!

2 pilot: The speed is very high!

KVS: Okay, that’s it, let’s go out, let’s go out. Right! High speed. Remove the gas!

2 pilot: Cleaned it up!

PIC: Quietly!

KVS: Let's go out now! Everything is fine! Slowly on yourself. Slowly. Slowly, I say!

Airplane collision with the ground.

The bodies of the 22 passengers on the airbus could not be identified. By decision of the Russian authorities, they were all cremated together. Meanwhile, the investigation into the disaster continued, and experts had to work in difficult conditions. This was a precedent, the first time that a foreign-made aircraft crashed while operating a Russian airline flight. « Aeroflot » and Airbus Industry tried to soften the blow to their reputations - lawyers for each side worked very actively, and it was not easy for investigators to maintain a balance.

The investigation confirmed that the autopilot was engaged when the crash began. This means that even though there were children in the cockpit, the plane had to follow its course. And the main question that the experts had to answer: what happened when Eldar took the helm? As the decoding of the recorders showed, Eldar, unlike his sister, tried to turn the helm before his father gave the command to the autopilot to turn the plane. The steering wheel did not budge, and the teenager made some effort. It was this action that led to the partial disabling of the autopilot.

Vladimir Biryukov, test pilot:

The peculiarity of this aircraft is that it does not have a sound signal for disabling the autopilot, but Russian aircraft do have it. By allowing his son to take the helm - even though this is a violation - the captain of the airliner was confident that if something happened, the crew would hear the signal and detect that the autopilot had been turned off. But on the A310, this signal is given by one small light bulb, and the pilots might not know this.

There was another reason why the crew did not understand what was happening: the instrument panel showed that the autopilot was turned on - after all, the device controlled all other flight parameters. When Eldar noticed a roll on the artificial horizon, the plane could be leveled. But here the pilots are distracted by a false holding area - after all, Kudrinsky returned the plane to the set course. While they are trying to figure out what's going on, the plane goes into a critical roll. He cannot fly in this state and begins to lose altitude.

Could the plane have been saved? To answer this question, experts had to simulate the disaster on a simulator located at the Airbus Industry facility in France. As the modification showed, the pilots overdid it when bringing the plane out of its dive. All they had to do was let go of the yoke, and then the plane would not fly vertically into the sky. The A310 has a built-in self-preservation mechanism that will prevent it from falling over even at very low speeds. It seems that despite their training, the pilots did not know this. The fact that the plane was flown by a 15-year-old teenager was not the only reason for the disaster. The conclusions made by Vladimir Biryukov demonstrated insufficient training of pilots to fly the A310. Even people who had undergone special training did not know that the autopilot could be partially disabled, and did not understand that the aircraft was switched to manual aileron control mode. This feature of the A310 continues today, allowing pilots to change individual flight parameters. But modern pilots are definitely warned about it.

After the investigation, changes were made to the aircraft documentation and the Aeroflot pilot training plan. In particular, now the operating manual for all Airbus A310s has included a clause about spontaneous shutdown of automatic aileron control when a force of more than 10 kg is applied to the steering wheel for 30 seconds or more.

P.S. I’ve been reading about this plane crash for a long time, but I’m still in shock! Shocked by the actions of the crew members. How could you let a child take the helm of a FLYING plane when you have 63 passengers behind you who entrusted you with their lives? This is what they were thinking??? What's the difference between an autopilot and not an autopilot?! During the flight, only crew members and no one else can be in the cockpit! I feel sorry for the innocent people who could live now, raise children, babysit their grandchildren...

The plane crash of flight SU593 occurred on March 22, 1994 near Mezhdurechensk in the Kemerovo region. As a result of the crash of the Aeroflot airline A310, all 75 people on board were killed.

The main cause of the disaster was an unacceptable situation in which the aircraft commander put his fifteen-year-old son at the controls of the airliner, whose unintentional actions led to a partial shutdown of the autopilot. Secondary reasons were the undocumented behavior of the autopilot, and the absence, at that time, of rules for making decisions in such situations in the crew training program.

Catastrophe

Flight 593 was operated on an Airbus A310-304 (tail number F-OGQS) from Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport to Hong Kong. The crew commander Yaroslav Kudrinsky took on board his two children - daughter Yana and son Eldar. When the plane flew in the Novokuznetsk area, Kudrinsky, in violation of the regulations, allowed first his daughter and then his son to sit in the ship’s commander’s chair. This circumstance was ignored by other crew members.

Before allowing the children to take the command seat, Kudrinsky turned on the autopilot. The commander's daughter did not try to take any action to control the plane. After her, the captain’s son, 15-year-old Eldar Kudrinsky, took the helm. The child held the steering wheel, slightly rocking it from side to side, which could not lead to the autopilot being turned off by “overpowering.” However, in the end, Eldar applied a force of 12-14 kg to the steering wheel, which led to a partial shutdown of the autopilot, which stopped sending commands to the ailerons, which caused an uncontrolled roll to the right. Before this, this feature of the A-310 autopilot was unknown. The light signaling system for disabling the mode went off, but the crew did not notice this, since a design feature of the aircraft is the absence of an audible signaling system for disabling the autopilot.

The plane turned to the right along the longitudinal axis at a speed of 1.5° per second, and soon the right roll reached 45°, which is above the permissible limit. This caused significant positive g-forces (4.8 g). When the crew members noticed that the autopilot was disabled, they attempted to resume their seats. This was not difficult for the co-pilot, since his seat is on the right side of the cockpit, and the plane was banked to the right. The commander could not get into his seat for a long time due to severe overload and a large roll angle.

Meanwhile, the roll had already reached 90°, and the plane began to lose altitude. In order to prevent further descent, the autopilot (only the roll automatic was turned off) increased the pitch angle to such an extent that the plane began to quickly lose speed and went into a stall. The co-pilot completely turned off the automatic control and managed to bring the plane out of the stall by lowering the nose. The overload decreased, and the commander finally reached his place. Now the plane was quickly gaining speed and rapidly losing altitude. The crew reduced the engine operating mode and pulled the steering wheel to the limit, but the altitude reserve was not enough, and 2 minutes 6 seconds after entering the spin, the plane crashed into the forest several kilometers southwest of Mezhdurechensk.

Transcript of negotiations

Co-pilot: Novosibirsk, Aeroflot, 593rd we are passing your point at flight level 10,100.
Commander: Well, Yana, will you pilot?
Yana (sitting in the ship's commander's chair): No!
Commander: Don't press the buttons. Don't touch this red one!..
Yana: Dad, can this be played?
Commander: Do you see Novokuznetsk on the left?
Yana: Are we flying so low?
Commander: Ten thousand one hundred meters.
Yana: That's a lot, right?
Commander: A lot...
Yana tries to leave the chair.
Commander: Wait, don't rush...
Yana: I’m already careful...
The son of the Eldar ship commander appears. Sits in the first pilot's seat.
Eldar: Can this be turned?
Commander: Yes! If you turn left, where will the plane go?
Eldar: Left!
Commander: Turn! Turn left!
Eldar: Great!
Commander: Is the plane going to the left?
Eldar: Coming.
Several minutes pass.
Eldar: Why is he turning around?
Commander: Does it turn on its own?
Commander: Hold the helm!
Pilot: Speed!
Commander: Turn left! Left! Right! Left! The earth is here! Eldar, come out!
Get out, Eldar! Come out! Come out! Come out! Come out! Come out, I say! Full throttle!
Pilot: Gave the gas!
Commander: Full throttle!
Pilot: Yes!
Commander: Gas full!
Pilot: The speed is very high!
Commander: Yes! Let's go out! Right! Leg to the right!
Commander: Turn off the gas!
Pilot: Cleaned it up!
Commander: Quietly!
Pilot: B..., again!
Commander: Let's go out now! Everything is fine!
Commander: Slowly, I say!
End of recording.

Audio recording of negotiations