The Lufthansa pilot crashed the plane. Investigation into the A320 crash in the Alps - facts and versions. A spoke in the wheels from the West

The plane crash in France on a Germanwings Airbus A320 is still under investigation, but investigators have a version that the co-pilot deliberately caused the crash.

But preliminary data already allows experts to put forward their “technical” versions of the tragedy. Thus, the airliner had exhausted its flight life by 97% before major repairs. And the cause of the disaster could have been depressurization or a fatal error of the computer, which was “blind” by receiving incorrect data from a frozen sensor.

Second pilot

The black box found showed that it was one of the ones before the plane fell. Later it became known that it was the commander and his assistant, 28-year-old Andreas Lubitz, remained in the cockpit. On the recording you can hear how the commander, returning back, knocked, lightly at first, then more and more insistently.

The investigation has a version that the pilot, who remained in the cockpit, could have deliberately destroyed the plane. So, according to the prosecutor of Marcel Brice Robin, on the recording you can hear the pilot breathing “differently than during loss of consciousness or a heart attack.” And then he deliberately did not allow the commander into the cockpit.

“For reasons that are completely unclear to us, his actions can be considered as a desire to destroy the plane,” Robin said, Le Monde reports.

For security reasons, the door to the pilot's cabin is locked, and it is simply impossible to knock it out without available means. But the commander tried to get into the cockpit by breaking down the door until the plane crashed into the ground.

According to regulations, the door on the Airbus A320 can only be opened from the cabin itself. Using a special code, the pilot or flight attendant can disable the lock. This mechanism is provided specifically for emergency situations. But the pilot can block this code too, and then the door remains closed.

“I can say that he deliberately allowed the plane to lose altitude. It’s not that the rate of loss of altitude is completely abnormal, but he had no reason to do this, there was no reason not to let the captain into the cockpit and not to explain to the controllers why the plane was losing speed.” , - said German prosecutor Enri Samuel, reports Reuters.

The computer went blind

The A320's angle of attack sensors may have failed. This version was suggested by the French Airbus A320 pilot Thierry Le Bailly in an interview with France24. A drop in temperature and icing could cause a malfunction in its operation and the autopilot began to incorrectly calculate the aircraft's angle of climb and altitude. In essence, the on-board computer is simply “blind”.

In this situation, the aircraft's on-board computer turns on the ship's protection mode and does not allow the crew to control the aircraft. The only way out in this situation is to turn off the computer and take control. But the pilots may not have been aware of this feature of the aircraft, suggested Thierry Le Bailly.

A frozen angle of attack sensor was responsible for the crash of one Airbus A320 in 2008 off the coast of France during a test flight. The cause of the accident was water entering the sensor, which froze at altitude and blocked the sensors. Then 7 people died.

But the executive director of Germanwings, Thomas Winkelmann, assured that the captain of the airliner had more than ten years of experience, including more than 6 thousand hours of flying on the A320. At the same time, the director did not talk about the qualifications of the co-pilot, who was at the controls during the disaster. As it later became known, 28-year-old Andreas Lubitz had ten times less experience - 630 hours.

Cabin depressurization

The crashed Airbus A320 was one of the oldest aircraft of this type, having taken flight in 1990. Before the disaster, he managed to fly about 58 thousand hours out of the 60 thousand allowed before the overhaul. In fact, it has exhausted its resource by 97%. According to the plan, after 60 thousand flight hours, the aircraft is sent to the plant, where structural repair work is carried out, when entire components of the aircraft are replaced and strengthened.

Some experts associate the causes of the plane crash with the fatigue of the aircraft structure, dailymail reports. Before the start of the fall, the airliner just managed to reach a flight altitude of about 12 kilometers. A crack in the windshield, one of the most vulnerable parts of the aircraft, could lead to depressurization of the cabin.

There is not enough air at such a height to breathe and this leads to loss of consciousness. According to the instructions, the pilot must put on an oxygen mask and begin descending to several thousand meters and immediately land at the nearest airfield.

Radar controllers clearly saw the A320, unresponsive, begin a sharp descent. In ten minutes, the multi-ton airliner “failed” 10 kilometers and disappeared from radar screens 2 thousand meters from the ground.

Sunroof problem

On the eve of departure on March 23, problems were discovered with the plane, which closes after takeoff. Because of this, the plane was not allowed to take off, but the problem was quickly resolved. According to Germanwings, this problem could not have caused the accident, and repairs were only needed to eliminate noise.

The aircraft underwent complex maintenance, the so-called C-chek, in 2013. This procedure is performed after every 15-24 months of use of the aircraft or after 7.5 thousand flight hours.

C-chek takes several weeks and takes place in a special hangar. During this inspection, the aircraft is thoroughly inspected and the functionality of all its systems is checked. Thus, the next C-chek crashed A320 was supposed to pass in the near future.

A shocking version of the reasons for the crash of a German plane in the French Alps: the black box data presents a picture that does not fit in the head. Apparently, the co-pilot killed himself and his passengers by deliberately flying the plane uphill.

The version reported today by Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin, whose office is leading the investigation, made me horrified again. An airplane crash is a conscious and deliberate act of the co-pilot.

"You can hear the captain asking the co-pilot to take control of the ship. Then the sound of the door closing. You can hear several calls from the captain to be allowed into the cockpit. This happens using the intercom system - via an interphone, which has a monitor on which you can see him ", who is behind the door. But there was no response from the co-pilot. The captain knocks on the door, demanding to open the door. The co-pilot does not answer," says the prosecutor.

The co-pilot's name is Andreas Lubitz. 28 years. By nationality - German. Worked at Germanwings since 2013. Flight experience is short - only 630 hours. The prosecutor's office claims that he was tested for possible involvement in terrorist organizations and was not blacklisted by the intelligence services. Management at Lufthansa, which owns Germanwings, says Lubitz passed all physiological and psychological tests.

"The longest break in his flight training was 6 years. But before we hired him, he passed all the tests again. He was one hundred percent ready to fly. No restrictions. No additional recommendations. Absolutely all checks showed him suitability," says Lufthansa Chairman of the Board Carsten Spohr.

Members of the flying club in which Lubitz was a member also did not notice anything suspicious. Everyone spoke of him as a pleasant and cheerful person.

"He seemed very happy. Andreas was glad that he got this job. He trained for this in the United States. He studied for three years. When he came back to renew his license, we talked for a long time. He told a lot of things, and it seemed to us that he is still an open young man,” says Lubitz’s flying club colleague Peter Rüsker.

Hans, Andreas Lubitz's neighbor, is already tired of answering questions from journalists. He burst into tears and compared this tragedy to the massacre carried out by the Norwegian terrorist Breivik.

"Poor people! This is very similar to the horror that happened in Oslo, where 70 children died," he said.

Investigators did not comment on the pilot's religious beliefs, saying that this was not relevant to the case. The terrorist attack version is not being considered.

“There is no reason to believe that this was a terrorist attack. Now we will study the environment of this person,” said the Marseille prosecutor.

Police and the press have surrounded the house in the German city of Montabur, where Lubitz lived, and are interviewing everyone who knew the pilot. And in Düsseldorf, Lubitz’s apartment has already been searched.

Analysis of the audio recording of the “black box” leaves no doubt: as soon as the first pilot left the cockpit for a minute, his colleague closed the door, turned on the instruments to lower the aircraft and stopped communicating. The recording of the last 30 minutes before the crash makes it clear that Lubitz was conscious and perfectly aware that he was flying towards death, taking the lives of 149 more people with him.

“You can hear the co-pilot pressing the buttons of the monitoring system to lower the plane. I repeat, he is the only one controlling the Airbus A-320. The action to select the altitude is carried out consciously,” Brice Robin clarifies.

Now that the investigation has made its findings public, it has become clear that there is a gross violation of protocol on the part of the crew members. Experts insist: one person should not have remained in the cabin. The absent pilot's place must be taken by one of the stewards. That did not happen.

“If a person harbored the idea of ​​suicide, then he could create some kind of legend for himself, only he knew how to provoke the captain to leave. Versions can be different - see if the plane was icy from the window, so as not to frighten the passengers; the kitchen began to smoke, there were some strange smells, and so on,” believes Honored Pilot of Russia Viktor Sazhenin.

Dozens of instructions have been written and videos have been made about the exact protocol of behavior when one of the pilots leaves the cockpit. Strict rules were introduced after the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001. One of these videos was distributed today by representatives of the Airbus company. From this video instruction it follows that it is still possible to get into the closed cockpit. To do this you need to know a special code. If no one answers on the intercom, a secret combination of numbers gives the crew a small window, just five seconds, during which the door is open. However…

“There is another possibility: the person who remains in the cockpit can get up and close the door with a mechanical latch, and then nothing will help, no digital code,” says Honored Pilot of Russia Pyotr Marchenko.

The passengers of the crashed Airbus did not know about the inevitable outcome until the last moment - the descent of the airliner was too smooth. People started screaming moments before they died.

There are plenty of cases in the history of aviation when pilots deliberately drove a plane to its death. Since the mid-70s, there have been at least seven of them, the largest being the incident on October 31, 1999, the crash of an EgyptAir Boeing 767 off the coast of the American island of Nantucket. Flight 990 was traveling from Los Angeles to Cairo. The aircraft crashed into the Atlantic waters as a result of a sudden loss of altitude. American experts came to the conclusion that the cause of the disaster was the deliberate actions of the co-pilot, who, in the absence of the commander, turned off both engines and, with the words “I rely on God,” sent the plane into a dive. There were 217 people on board, all of them died.

The news that the cause of the crash was the suicide of the co-pilot, and not technical malfunctions of the plane or depressurization of the cabin, forced the French prosecutor's office to change the nature of the investigation and open a criminal case.

Lufthansa and its subsidiary Germanwings are undoubtedly facing numerous lawsuits from relatives of the victims. Some of the relatives of the passengers arrived today at the scene of the plane crash. Their communication with the press is not planned; the gendarmerie took the people under protection. The search and removal of the remains of the victims continues at the scene of the tragedy. According to French authorities, work to identify them has already begun.

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. airline 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 the 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.

The plane crashed into the slope of Mount Salak at an altitude of 1860 meters. There were 45 people on board, including eight Russians. The crew and passengers died. AiF.ru found out what condition the Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SSJ-100) aircraft are in today, how many of these aircraft are flying today and which airlines are actively purchasing them.

What's happened?

The cause of the disaster that occurred four years ago is considered to be an error in flight preparation, that is, the crew’s ignorance of the terrain along the flight route, incorrect settings of the escort airport’s radars, and the crew’s distraction by extraneous conversations. On the day of the disaster, the airliner had already completed 502 takeoff-landing cycles and had flown 843 hours. The plane was in good order. Moreover, the TAWS signal - a system for preventing an aircraft from colliding with the ground - worked on time, but was turned off for some reason by the pilot-in-command himself. By the way, the commander of the ship, 8 minutes before the collision with the mountainside outside the flight plan, twice requested a descent to 1800 meters. And, having received permission, he began to descend towards Mount Salak, 2211 meters high, in conditions of poor visibility and low clouds.

The investigation of the incident was carried out by a commission of the National Transport Safety Committee (NTSC) of Indonesia. On December 18, 2012, in her final report on the crash, she said that it was due to pilot errors: the crew members did not take into account that they would be flying near mountainous terrain, which is why the crew did not react in any way to the TAWS system warnings about approaching ground and , in fact, turned off the warning signal. Moreover, before the collision with the mountainside, the crew, including the commander, negotiated with a potential buyer of the airliner, distracted from piloting.

Mount Salak in Indonesia, where the Sukhoi Superjet 100 crashed. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

How did the Sukhoi Superjet 100 appear in Russia?

Due to the fact that in the late 1990s - early 2000s. civil air transportation took place on outdated airliners, Russian airlines had to purchase foreign aircraft. It was then that the Sukhoi company began to develop a passenger aircraft, creating Sukhoi Civil Aircraft CJSC in 2000. This aircraft is a development of the modern domestic aviation industry, and major international manufacturers - Safran, Thales, Liebherr, Goodrich, etc. - became suppliers of a number of components.

As a result, the first test of the new airliner on the runway took place on May 14, 2008, and on May 19 of the same year, the aircraft made its first flight at an altitude of 1200 meters. By the end of the year, Sukhoi Superjet 100 made its second flight at an altitude of 6000 meters. Three years later, in 2011, the first production Sukhoi SuperJet 100 No. 95007, named after cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, was transferred to operation of the Armenian airline “Armavia”.

Photo: www.globallookpress.com

A spoke in the wheels from the West

“For pilots, the Sukhoi SuperJet 100 is a golden plane; we never had anything like it. The cockpit and avionics are very comfortable, good gyroscopes, foreign systems are the latest. And the machine itself behaves simply amazingly,” says Yuri Sytnik, Honored Pilot of Russia, member of the Russian Presidential Commission for the Development of General Aviation.

As of mid-April 2016, according to the Sukhoi Civil Aircraft company, 102 Sukhoi SuperJet-100 aircraft were produced, 68 of which are operated in Russia and abroad. Thus, Aeroflot airline has been receiving 30 Sukhoi SuperJet-100 aircraft since June 2011. And in January 2015, Aeroflot and Sukhoi Civil Aircraft came to an agreement that another 20 SSJ-100 aircraft would be added to these 30. Today Aeroflot has 27 Sukhoi SuperJet-100 aircraft. Another major operator is the Mexican InterJet, which already has 21 aircraft on its wing and 9 more to be delivered. Among the operators are also airlines Yakutia, Gazpromavia, Red Wings, Yamal, etc. And the total flight time of the Sukhoi SuperJet-100 has exceeded 180 thousand hours. In addition to active operation in Russia, the aircraft flies to airports in Belarus, Bulgaria, Hungary, Germany, Denmark, China, Mexico, Norway, Romania, Poland, Sweden, the USA and other countries.

By the way, the manufacturer recalled all 5 SSJ-100 airliners in their fleet from the Red Wings airline due to the fact that it did not comply with the terms of the aircraft lease agreement.

Aeroflot SSJ-100. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

“Unfortunately, Sukhoi SuperJet-100s are still purchased in small quantities. Airlines are not confident that the after-sales service system will occur promptly. And a plane that sits on the ground waiting for spare parts generates losses,” says Alexey Zakharov, independent aviation expert.

Yuriy Sytnik also agrees with him: “The aircraft is assembled more than 70% from imported spare parts. For example, its engines are French. They wanted to supply 12 Sukhoi SuperJet-100 aircraft to Crimea, the French got wind of this and sent a letter stating that as soon as the first SuperJet aircraft landed in Crimea, they would stop supplying spare parts and engines. Why have such a plane if we depend on someone? All warehouses with spare parts for it are abroad!

According to Sytnik, today there is a discussion about starting to produce our own parts for this aircraft. But when this will happen is still unclear. Yes, and this will take several years.

“Just recently there was a meeting on this aircraft at the Federal Air Transport Agency, and the French insisted that the contribution of spare parts should be made only in Europe. This is inconvenient and expensive for us,” adds Yu. Sytnik, “after all, the plane is really very good, of high quality, and in order for it to be completely under our control, we need the spare parts to be ours!”

Assembly of Sukhoi Superjet-100 aircraft. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

* Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SSJ-100) is a new generation aircraft developed and manufactured by Sukhoi Civil Aircraft CJSC with the participation of international companies. The aircraft can carry from 75 to 95 passengers. Currently, most of the aircraft are in the fleet of Aeroflot, Gazpromavia and the Mexican airline Interjet.

occurred on December 20, 1995. Flight 965 was preparing to take off from Miami Airport. His destination was the city of Cali in Colombia. The flight was slightly delayed due to long passenger check-in times. They received permission to take off half an hour late. But the difficulties did not end there. Due to the high congestion at the airport, the plane was delayed for another two hours.

The captain of the plane was 57-year-old Nicholas Tafuri. He was one of the most experienced American Airlines pilots. By that time he had already flown more than 13,000 hours. He also had good experience flying the Boeing 757. The co-pilot was Don Williams. It was the beginning of the Christmas holiday season, and passengers were getting ready to celebrate the holiday. Most of them were flying home to their relatives.

Passenger: I was flying to Cali with my family. We wanted to get there quickly and see our relatives.

At 2:45 a.m. the plane was flying at an altitude of 11 kilometers. Then, at a signal from Cali Airport, he began to descend. The Boeing 757 was a high-tech aircraft equipped with an on-board computer. Thanks to a special program, the computer can control the flight of the aircraft throughout the entire flight. But it was the pilots’ trust in the computer that turned into a disaster for Flight 965. It was a moonless night. Visibility did not exceed 10 kilometers. The plane was about 100 kilometers from Cali. Its city airport is located at the end of a large gorge. Mountains rise above the gorge on both sides. To reach the landing course, the plane had to sequentially pass a chain of navigation points. These were radio beacons indicating the route. According to the program, the on-board computer was supposed to receive signals and change the direction of the aircraft. Flight 965 was approaching the radio beacon in the city of Tulua. After Tulua it was necessary to begin the descent to the radio beacon in the city of Roseau. And only then land at Cali airport.

The Cali airport air traffic controller was watching the approaching plane. But suddenly a problem arose. Rebels opposed to the Colombian government blew up an air radar. The controllers lost the ability to track the planes. In the absence of radar, the controller was forced to rely on the readings of the instruments in the cockpit.

The controller cleared the plane to land in Cali and told the plane to descend to 5,000 feet. He also asked to be informed when the plane would pass the radio beacon in Tulua. Captain Tafuri thought that he was being given a landing in Cali with a beacon drive at Tulua. However, the dispatcher only asked to inform him about the passage of this place. This was the main mistake.

Dispatcher: I thought the captain's words "as the crow flies" meant that the flight was heading to Cali without any delays. However, I asked the captain to report the plane passing the radio beacon, due to the failure of our radar.

It's a pity, but the plane captain began entering the changed data into the computer. As a result, the intermediate radio beacon in Tulua, which the plane was approaching, was removed from the route map in Cali.

Passenger: I remember how the flight attendants suggested that we fasten our seat belts and raise the seat backs. It became clear that landing would soon take place. All passengers were very pleased.

There were 11 minutes left before the estimated time of arrival. The controller asked if the plane was ready to enter runway 1-9. The original plan was to land on runway 1-0. But it was even better this way. The plane did not need to circle over the city for long. The pilots were happy. They began to descend toward the runway. This made disaster inevitable. The controller requested confirmation of the passage of the Tulua and Roseau radio beacons. The pilots were confused. How could they have missed the Tulua drive? Then events unfolded very quickly. The crew needed to enter new information about the aircraft's position into the computer. The captain asked the controller if they could fly directly to Roseau Drive. He allowed the flight, but once again asked the pilots for the time to pass the Tulua drive. Without radar, the controller could not see where the plane was.

The next moment, Captain Tafuri made another fateful decision. On the computer, when selecting the Roseau beacon, he entered the letter “P” in the search bar. The database showed 10 navigation points starting with this letter. The Roseau radio beacon should have been at the top of the list. But there was a glitch, and the captain changed course to a completely different navigation point. At a speed of 520 km/h, descending by 400 meters per minute, the plane began to sharply change its flight direction. Later the plane crashed in the mountains near Cali.

Dispatcher: It never occurred to me that they deviated from the route. I didn't have any radar data.

As a result, the pilots completely lost control of the situation. They relied on data from instruments, while the plane moved further and further from the desired course. In less than one minute, the airliner turned towards the mountains. The pilots began to realize that they were flying off course. After two minutes, the captain realized that they could not return to the old route themselves and decided to move directly to the airport, bypassing the aircraft. They did not know that there were already rocks between them and Kali.

Suddenly, the emergency warning system about the dangerous proximity of the ground went off. The pilots immediately began climbing.

Passenger: I felt the plane suddenly go up. It felt like we were being tossed around on high waves.

The plane crashed into a mountain

All the efforts of the pilots did not yield results. With my nose in the air, airplane at high speed crashed into a mountain. At the estimated time, aircraft 965 did not reach the landing strip. Also, contact with him was lost. It seemed he had disappeared without a trace. An announcement appeared on the monitors in the waiting rooms that the flight was delayed. However, soon, local residents of the town of Bug reported that they heard a strong explosion. It became clear that the plane had crashed.

The first ambulances began to arrive at the rock mass where the plane crashed. 6 hours after the disaster, in the area of ​​one of the mountains, the first wreckage of the plane was discovered. There were no roads there at all. It was an area cut off from civilization. It was very difficult to get there. But there were still living people in the crashed plane.

Passenger: I remember how I came to my senses the next morning. The sun shone brightly. I couldn't understand how I ended up here.

At dawn, a Colombian Air Force helicopter began to survey the disaster area. But every minute of delay could cost someone their life. The victims could not get out of the rubble themselves. Moreover, it was very cold, and the survivors could simply freeze. Finally, after some time, one of the helicopters managed to locate the crash site.

Passenger: When I saw the helicopter, I started waving the blanket, hoping that they would notice us.

After spending 10 hours in the cold mountains, the surviving passengers of Flight 965 were finally rescued.

Passenger: When the helicopter arrived, a rope was dropped from it, and people began to climb down it. I was absolutely happy then.

Rescuers began searching for survivors. The rescue operation lasted 13 hours and was greatly complicated by strong winds and clouds. Of the 163 passengers on Flight 965, only 4 survived.

Meanwhile, specialists took care of the wreckage. They needed to figure out how one of the most advanced airliners could go off course and crash.

Expert: The investigation showed that the plane crashed into the eastern part of the mountain slope. This happened after the crew decided to make a U-turn.

The bulk of the debris was located on a small high mountain plateau. The disaster shocked many. It was a modern plane. It belonged to one of the best airlines in the world. No one could understand how this could happen. The investigators focused all their attention on the actions of the flight crew. Fortunately, the black boxes were quickly discovered. It was they who could reveal the mystery of the death of board 965.

Investigator: The fact is that one mistake made by the pilot cannot yet cause a disaster. There must be a series of errors.

As the plane approached Cali, the controller showed the pilots exactly where to land. The fact that the landing strip had changed forced the pilots to make hasty decisions. The flight crew had to quickly revise the route diagram and re-program the on-board computer.

Investigator: In any case, when a person is in a hurry, he can accidentally make a fatal mistake. The Roseau Drive was marked on the map. Therefore, the captain entered the letter “P” as a key. This automatically meant changing the route to the corresponding lighthouse. But there was a glitch in the program. As a result, the plane flew on a completely different course.

The map, which is located on the pilot's instrument panel, indicated the chosen course of movement. According to him, the plane began to move to the left. Unfortunately, the co-pilot did not pay attention to the captain's mistake. He was too busy preparing the plane for landing. As a result, the pilots directed the plane to the crash site. They have lost control of the situation. The plane was flying on autopilot, according to the program embedded in it. Only a few minutes later the pilots decided to return to their previous course. However, instead of gaining a safe altitude, they continued to descend. When the signal sounded that the ground was dangerously close, the co-pilot managed to turn off the autopilot. But the landing flaps remained extended. According to experts, with the flaps retracted, the plane would have time to gain a safe altitude and fly over the mountain.

According to the classification, this accident falls into the category of controlled accidents. This means that at the time of the crash, the plane was fully operational and under control of the crew, who actually flew it up the mountain. Both pilots were highly skilled pilots, but they faced problems that they simply did not have enough time to solve.

In accordance with the court's decision, responsibility for the disaster was placed on the pilots, who made a number of errors during the landing approach. The accident served as a serious lesson for all pilots. She also reminded that it is important to calculate your every step when the lives of other people are in your hands.