Why do planes fall just like that? Why are planes falling, or what is wrong with Russian aviation? Safe aircraft

Paradoxically for a program with a similar name, it was she who helped me morally prepare for the first flight and even more: thanks to her, I I look at the sky with loving eyes- because now I notice not only the noise of the liners flying over the city, but also their beauty! After 20 years, I was finally able to appreciate all the charm of life near the airport: after all, every day I can admire hundreds of beautiful airplanes taking off 🛫 and landing 🛬!

"Air Crash Investigations"- an educational documentary series produced by Canada, which can be watched on the channel National Geographic... Each of his episodes tells about an exceptional aviation accident - whether it be a terrible crash or a miraculous rescue of an airplane. Filmed for 16 seasons and more than a hundred episodes!

These are stories about real events.
They are based on official reports and eyewitness accounts.

✈ O educational moment:"Investigations" introduce us to aviation: the structure of an aircraft, the basics of aerodynamics, professional vocabulary. With their help, we learn that aircraft, contrary to popular belief, are lifted into the air not by magic, but by lift! What if at the most crucial moment of the flight the pilots are discussing whiskey, tango or foxtrot, this does not mean at all that they are drunk! And that there is no way without spoilers on the plane! Fear not - you can handle it all without even being tech-savvy! Key points are explained in a more than accessible way with visual illustrations:

Hydraulics are the blood of the aircraft. It allows you to apply force to the controls: retract / release the landing gear, control the flaps. If not, you can simply throw the steering wheel out the window.

We are also introduced to the work of the aircraft crew, dispatchers and experts. The program features the best representatives of these responsible professions, true fans of their business, who infect with their love for aviation.

✈ P helots- the central characters of the story. And sometimes they really heroes! Those who do not panic in a critical situation and do not give up to the last - remembering that in their hands the lives of hundreds of passengers; those who remember everything they have ever learned, improvise and try the most incredible ideas - just to reach the ground; those whose instincts are sharpened so strongly that it seems as if they merge with the plane - so subtly they feel the wounded car - these are the pilots who work wonders! These people are truly admirable and incredibly inspiring!

Through terrible trial and error, the commander determines what the damaged aircraft can and cannot do.

At that moment, I felt the weight of these four stripes on the shoulder straps. I am the commander of the aircraft. If I don't do anything, we will all die.

✈ B orthopedic guides- not just the face of the company, smiling at you on board. The main task of the flight attendant is not at all to provide for the everyday needs of the passenger such as lunch or a warm blanket - his main task is to ensure safety in flight. The conductors are trained in actions in case of fire or landing on water, they know how to provide first aid, and it is on their shoulders that the preparation of the cabin for a hard landing and the organization of the evacuation of passengers falls. The lives of people in a critical situation depend on their speed and self-control.

I focused on being helpful. Maybe for your own sake - when you calm someone down, you calm down yourself.

We just didn't have time to be scared - we had to prepare the cabin for an emergency landing. I was scared only when I took myplace.

✈ D supervisors watching the fate of each side from the ground. Usually their task is to bring the plane to the desired course and altitude, report weather conditions, allow takeoff or landing - they do this a hundred times a day. But there are days when instead of the usual " Understood, I occupy echelon 3000" or " Taxiing to the Alpha lane"The headphones ring out words that every dispatcher hopes never to hear:" Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! I am in disaster! ". And sometimes the dispatcher can only helplessly watch a point on the radar, praying that the crew will cope, because the only moment more terrible than a distress message can be when this point disappears from the screen and the radio air is filled with silence ...

I heard that a Boeing 767 has just landed safely. The plane remained intact and we screamed with joy - after all, all these people will spend the night in their own beds today!

The feeling of dread increases at the airport. Two aircraft disappeared from the approach control station locator. The worst nightmare of an air traffic controller is a mid-air collision.

✈ P passengers: Those who survived the disaster share their memories of the ill-fated flight - of the atmosphere in the cabin, of how people around them felt. It is impossible to imagine what it would be like to see a burning engine or the rapidly approaching earth through the window and not know what fate awaits you - whether you will see your loved ones again or these terrible minutes are the last minutes of your life. Their relatives tell about the dead. We're used to dry statistics like: " N passengers and n crew members died ", but you need to remember that behind each figure there is a whole person - the whole world! With his own history, his plans and dreams.

We sent them a photo of her. She should not be for them only a place number or the amount of material compensation - they should understand that she was a person.

The woman was sitting next to me, and her husband was sitting on the other side of the aisle. And they stretched their hands to each other, trying to touch at least with their fingers to say goodbye.

✈ WITH researchers- these are modern Sherlock Holmes and Dr. House from aviation. After each serious incident, they have to thoroughly study all the materials and conduct hundreds of analyzes, and often reveal all the ins and outs of the crew and airlines, sweeping aside attractive options like "lupus" and "vasculitis" along the way, in order, in the end, to come to the only correct diagnosis and, finally, rid the aircraft of this infection forever. But seriously, what is the course of the investigation? First, investigators need to get to the scene of the incident, which sometimes can be problematic - after all, planes fall in various places - in the mountains at an altitude of several kilometers or a hundred meters from the runway, in the middle of the ocean or in the middle of the desert, over swamps teeming with crocodiles , or over the impenetrable jungle.

On the first day, we had eight snakebites, three broken legs, and one cardiac arrest.

Already at the first glance at the crash site, one can draw some conclusions about what happened. For example, by the radius of the scattering of the wreckage of an aircraft, one can judge whether it fell apart in the air or remained intact before hitting the ground. Along the length of the strip of destruction, you can set the angle at which the plane entered the ground. And according to the condition of the blades, it is possible to determine whether the engines worked right up to the collision itself, or whether they stalled even in the air, which, possibly, provoked the catastrophe. To accurately establish the whole picture, it is necessary to find recorders, as well as collect and study all the fragments of the aircraft.

It's like a detective's job because you're looking for clues that might point to what led to what happened.

While information is being extracted from damaged black boxes, investigators are putting forward the most daring theories. If there was a sudden failure of systems or some strategically important element has failed, be it the engine or the elevator, then the lives of thousands of passengers around the world, traveling on the same model of aircraft, are threatened. Investigators use the help of a variety of specialists - from metallurgists to meteorologists, carefully examining the collected parts, interviewing eyewitnesses and studying the documentation to find confirmation or refutation of their assumptions.

We worked on an airplane that has been incredibly safe throughout its history - for 30 years now. We tried to prove that an excellent student has defects.

If the technical reasons for the accident disappear, the attention of the investigators switches to the crew members. Often, the decoding of the voice recorder and information from the flight data recorder put everything in its place. Psychologists help to understand the reasons why an experienced commander could confuse right and left, and why the co-pilot did not dare to point out to him the error. Investigators analyze the negotiations in the cockpit, study personal files and work and rest schedules, talk with relatives, finding out all the details, down to what the pilots had dinner and what time they went to bed on the eve of the tragedy, communicate with their colleagues, trying to understand what kind of atmosphere reigned in team, arrange real flights with professional pilots or simulate an emergency on a flight simulator to check whether the pilots could have avoided a disaster or were doomed.

Why did they do what they did. Or why they didn't do what should have been done.

Sometimes it takes more than one year to find the right answer.

✈ P Why do planes fall? As a rule, a combination of several factors leads to a tragic outcome. A flaw in the aircraft design, device malfunction, part defect, explosion, negligence of service personnel, dispatcher or crew error, difficult weather conditions - this is not the whole list of possible causes of a crash. Even a collision with birds can be a serious test for an aircraft. Needless to say, wasps once caused a fatal accident ... The goal of the investigators investigating each incident is to identify the tragic chain of circumstances that brought the plane to the brink of death, and to propose ideas for improving flight safety that will help avoid such tragedies in future. Just imagine that there were times when it was allowed to smoke on flights, when pilots were separated from passengers only by a curtain instead of an impenetrable door with a coded lock, and when not every plane was equipped with flight recorders and elementary smoke detectors - sometimes there was such a smog in the cabin that it was hard to understand if the smokers tried, or a real fire started on board!

We must learn a lesson from every incident. Unfortunately, these lessons come at a very high cost ...

✈ M o and conclusions:

Flights are becoming safer. Each serious incident leaves its mark and affects the entire industry as a whole: the perpetrators are punished, conclusions are drawn, standards change, standards are adjusted, designs are improved.

We are all humans. Although most of the disasters are caused by human factors, this is not a reason to give up flying. After all, we do not refuse taxis and buses, minibuses and trams, ferries and metro, and they are run by the same people who are also prone to mistakes.

Which have not be avoided. You can be afraid to fly, spend your whole life locked up within four walls and still die in a plane crash - you can't hide from fate ( as an example - flight 1862 El Al, which killed 4 people on board and 43 more on the ground. I will not insert shocking photos here, I will only say that the 11-storey building was cut by Boeing like a knife).

Miracles happen! Stories about people who survived the disaster ( take a look at the lone survivor plane crash list - impressive! Take, for example, the flight attendant Vesna Vulovic, who survived a fall without a parachute from a height of 10,000 meters, or seventeen-year-old Juliana Köpke, who got out to the people 9 days after the plane crash in the wild jungle!), inspire hope that even if something terrible happens to the plane, there will always be a chance for salvation, albeit a tiny one!

✈ AND selected series :

2x01 Overboard / Blowout(British Airways flight 5390, June 10, 1990) - 5,000 meters above the ground, the windshield falls out and the airliner commander is pulled out.

3х04 Suicide attack / Fight for Your Life(FedEx Flight 705, April 7, 1994) - During a flight, a flight engineer attacks his colleagues in an attempt to hijack an aircraft.

4x10 Ghost plane / Ghost plane(Helios Airways flight 522, August 14, 2005) - the liner with a hundred passengers on board for a long time circles over Athens, not answering calls from the ground.

5x02 Fatal landing / Gimli glider(Air Canada Flight 143, 23 July 1983) - At 12,000 meters, the engines stall, turning a huge Boeing into a helpless glider.

10x05Landing on the Hudson / Hudson river runway(US Airways flight 1549, January 15, 2009) - fromafter 90 seconds of flight, the liner loses its engines as a result of a collision with a flock of birds.

11x13Explosion over Sioux City / Impossible Landing(United Airlines flight 232, 19 July 1989) - fEngine parts damage the tail unit of the aircraft, leaving it without hydraulics.

12x01 Struggle for control / Fight for control(Flight 008 Reeve Aleutian Airways, June 8, 1983) - A broken propeller crashes into the fuselage, depriving pilots of aircraft controls.

13х04 Tragedy on the Potomac / Disaster on the potomac(Air Florida Flight 90, January 13, 1982) - Immediately after takeoff, the airliner falls on a frozen river, breaks through the ice and goes under water.

P.S. Note to boys and girls that are still in search of themselves: if you are not over forty yet, you are taller than a meter with a cap, but you do not bang your head against the ceiling, and you were also smart enough to keep your health from a young age - you still have a chance to try yourself in aviation. Honestly, I was so imbued with the beauty and thoughtfulness of the airplanes shown here, the complexity and responsibility of the pilot's profession, that I myself decided to go into the sky - only I didn’t grow up ... So I can only be content with the airliners flying over my head, seeing them off with a dreamy gaze ... But at least I have this beautiful dream, albeit a pipe dream)

With the development of the mass media, the public is showing an interest in the patterns of aircraft accidents and the statistics of aircraft crashes. This is due to the review of major civil aviation accidents. Having conceived a trip on vacation or on a business trip, a person often wonders if trouble will happen to him. The answer can be found by resorting to aviation statistics, which determine how often planes crash and for what reason.

Air crash statistics

Plane and train are considered the safest means of transportation. Having familiarized yourself with the statistics of accidents on different types of transport, you can see that getting into an accident on the bus is much easier than becoming a victim of an accident in the air. Most of the crashes are associated with an oversight of the authorities (terrorist attack) or with the error of the pilot and technical services.

About 10 thousand flights (3.65 million per year) take to the skies every day. Of the total annual air passenger traffic, the number of 1000 people is called, how many, on average, die per year. The mortality rate over the past 50 years has decreased from a probability of 1: 264 thousand to 1: 127.5 million. During the entire existence of aviation (100 years), about 150 thousand people died.

In Russia

Today the situation with disasters is unpredictable. About 60% of the Russian-made aircraft fleet is worn out. The rest is purchased abroad. Basically, these are Boeing models and Airbuses. The likelihood of a fall in passenger transport will only increase over the years: it is not known how the equipment will behave at the end of its service life.

Over the past 20 years, Russia has consistently ranked 2nd in the number of plane crashes after the United States. If private aeronautics were developed in Russia, perhaps the country would already be on the first line of the rating. Since 1945, about 350 accidents have occurred in Russia, excluding military and private plane crashes. More than 8 thousand people died.

The smallest number of aircraft crashes was recorded in 2006-2007: 7 per year.

According to the CIS Interstate Aviation Council (IAC), 2016 showed the worst statistics: 56 crashes with a total number of victims of 143 people. Since the beginning of 2018, there have already been 32 accidents with 116 casualties. The most significant was the recent crash of the AN-148 of Saratov Airlines flight 703 Moscow-Orsk, which occurred on February 11 near the village of Argunovo in the Moscow region. The board fell near Domodedovo, without gaining altitude, 71 people died.

The latest version of the prosecutor's office put forward the assumption that there is no treatment of the fuselage with an anti-icing fluid. The decoding of the voice recorder recordings testified to the dispute of the pilots about the "frozen" pressure and speed sensors. Clarifications continued until the fall.

According to eyewitnesses, the plane collided with a Russian Post helicopter: letters and parcels on board were found at the scene of the accident. According to information from the media, at the time of takeoff, the stewardess talked with her grandmother that they took off (everything is in order).

According to statistics, the percentage of falls during takeoffs is 17%. But the crew made a fatal mistake. On the same day, a small plane of a Turkish airline with 11 passengers crashed.

The aircraft crash specialists managed to deduce the circumstances of the accidents and their likelihood:

crew errors during landing - 51%;
malfunctions and weather conditions during climb - 8%;
with a decrease - 3%;
during loading - 5%;
during the landing approach - 7%.

After accidents, scary photos, videos, details of the crashes appear on the Internet. Anxiety and concern of people about their own safety is increasing. Over the past 10 years, Russia has been the leading country in terms of the number of crashes. Unfortunately, most of the passengers had no chance of escape, even when the board was at low altitude. There are also lucky ones who managed to survive after incredible falls. In most cases, these are flight attendants and crew members.

In the world

Most of the crashes occur in the United States, Russia and Canada (over 1,300 as of 2018). The number of victims is approaching 20 thousand. This is followed by Brazil, Colombia, Great Britain, France, India, Indonesia and Mexico.

Over the past 10 years, the first positions have remained with the countries: Russia, USA, Ukraine, Congo and Germany. At the same time, the United States remains the leader in terms of the number of victims. This is due to the increased cargo and passenger traffic. A large number of accidents of private planes and helicopters, as well as small aeronautical vessels, are recorded every day.

Over the past 5 years, there have been no major aircraft crashes in the United States. After the September attacks with two Boeings, the planes fell, but with the number of passengers not exceeding 50 people.

A huge number of disasters are registered in the military sphere during training missions or in the course of performing combat missions.

The largest number of tragedies was recorded in the 70s of the XX century. Among them, the collision of 2 aircraft on 03/28/1977 in the area of the island of Tenerife stands out, in which 583 people died.

The tragedy of April 10, 2010 is considered an international plane crash. The crash occurred on the territory of the Smolensk region. On board the Tu-154 flight Warsaw-Smolensk were the top management of Polish officials and President Lech Kaczynski. According to the official version, the plane crashed while lowering the altitude due to a hold on the tops of trees, which were difficult to notice in foggy conditions. Smolensk air traffic controllers allowed landing at an aerodrome that was not technically equipped for "carcasses" on the urgent initiative of one of the ministers. A delegation of 96 people hurried to the funeral procession on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre.

A significant political catastrophe of our time was the shelling of the Malaysian Boeing 777 from Buk installations from the territory of the Donetsk Republic (Ukraine) on July 17, 2014. The plane flew KL 4103 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with 298 passengers on board. The wreckage after a rocket attack was found near the village of Grabovo. The flight had a duplicate (Boeing flight MH17) that departed for Malaysia 17 minutes late. When the first Boeing was detected on radars, Ukrainian dispatchers sent it through the air corridor over the territory of the DPR (as usual), and MH17 - through the southern corridor (Russia), which became the main clue in the investigation of the incident.

During the examination of the Boeing-777 by the DPR militias, conclusions were drawn about the death of passengers long before takeoff. Their bodies were exhausted by the cadaverous odor that appears for at least 3 days. It also seemed unusual that there was a large amount of medicines and blood serum among the wreckage, which is not typical for a passenger airliner. There was practically no blood in the general compartment, while the cockpit was flooded with it.

Most conspiracy theorists consider the disaster to be staged. Presumably, the bodies were taken from a Malaysian liner that disappeared without a trace in early March. The incident itself was necessary to charge Russia with the use of force. The true circumstances are still unknown. The final investigation is unlikely to clarify the situation.

It also remains unclear who the people on board were and who were mourned by the relatives of the victims, most of whom were Dutch. Local residents of Donetsk are sure that the rebel BUK MANPADS installations were not the cause of the explosion. Shortly before the crash, a Su-35 was seen in the sky.

On August 26, 2006, Tu-154M of the Anapa - St. Petersburg flight crashed on the territory of the DPR. The reason was a thunderstorm, which brought the board into a flat tailspin; 170 bodies of the dead were found.

In terms of the number of victims in the course of aviation accidents, a different picture is obtained. The three leaders include the United States, Russia and Colombia. The list is continued by Brazil, France, India, Indonesia, Canada, Great Britain, Mexico.

Photo from the crash site of Airbus A321 in the Sinai Peninsula

Some of the largest accidents are the crash of Airbus A320 in the Java Sea (Indonesia) due to a thunderstorm, Airbus A321 in the Sinai Peninsula (Egypt) as a result of a terrorist attack and Airbus A320 due to the suicide of a German pilot, as a result of which the plane crashed into the ridge of the Provencal Alps ( France).

Why planes are falling: the main reasons

Human factor

Among the reasons for aircraft crashes, in most cases, the human factor is called: the inexperience of the pilots or the inability to correct the situation. As an example, we can cite the tragedy with the Alexandrov ensemble, who flew to a charity concert on December 25, 2016.

Tu-154 of the company Utair, en route to Syria, crashed due to a violation of spatial orientation in the 2nd minute after takeoff from Sochi. The plane crashed into the Black Sea. No one managed to survive.

Another Tu-154 disaster near Khabarovsk on December 7, 1995 occurred due to improper fuel consumption in the wings. None of the survivors: The board collided with Mount Bo-Jaus and exploded.

Violation of safety precautions

The second most frequent cause of crashes is considered to be a safety violation. On the night of March 23, 1994, the plane crash occurred due to the transfer of the main helm to the pilot's 15-year-old son. The hope for autopilot did not materialize. The boy, imitating the captain, began to turn the steering wheel and accidentally turned off the autopilot. The vessel managed to gain a rather high list. It was possible to restore balance at the level of the edges of the trees, which caused the final fall. Flight SU593 Moscow-Hong Kong ended near Mezhdurechensk. No one managed to escape.

technical issues

Technical malfunctions become the third in the list of reasons. Common are chassis failure, electronics and sensor failure, or engine failure (fire). Such incidents happened to the planes of the Ural Airlines.

On December 2, 2002, an experienced command without a chassis landed a TU-154 at the Pulkovo airport. There were no casualties.
The crash of the A310 of Siberia Airlines in Irkutsk on July 9, 2006 was due to the transition of one of the engines to takeoff mode during landing. As a result, the board stopped only after hitting the garage complex. The total death toll was 125. Those who were in the tail managed to survive (63 wounded and 25 unharmed).

Depressurization of the cockpit can become one of the possible causes of accidents. Such an incident occurred with a Helios Airways Boeing on August 14, 2005. As a result of a malfunction in the pressurization system in the cockpit, air ran out, causing the pilots to lose consciousness. The plane hovered over the territory of Greece until it ran out of fuel. The board exploded on impact on a rock 40 km from Athens.

The Belarusian airline "Belavia" constantly has technical malfunctions. Particularly publicized was the case when the plane broke into 2 parts right on the runway. Bombardier CRJ-100 was supposed to fly from Yerevan airport to Minsk on February 14, 2008. Due to the roll of the wing, the side turned over, as a result of which a rift was formed in the bow compartment. A fire broke out due to fuel spillage. There were no casualties, as people hurried to get out on their own through the resulting crack.

Lack of professionalism

The next reason on the list is ignorance of their business. So, through the fault of the pilot of the Yak-42 flight Yaroslavl-Minsk, the hockey team Lokomotiv, flying to the KHL, died. The tragedy occurred on September 7, 2011 as a result of repeated pressing on the brake during takeoff. The board took off from the ground outside the runway, as it did not have time to accelerate. A few seconds later, at a height of 6 meters, there was a collision with a lighthouse by the river. Only one of the crew members (engineer) survived. Despite the absurdity of the situation, there are rumors in Russian aviation about the lack of education of pilots and purchased diplomas.

Terrorist attack

Terrorist attacks are not counted in aviation statistics, but a large number of accidents are caused by recruited criminals. The biggest plane crash in the last 10 years was the accident with the A321 (VP BOC) Kogalymavia, flying from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg at the end of October 2015. Recordings of black boxes revealed the sound of an explosion in the tail section. The wreckage of the liner was scattered over many kilometers in the deserted desert.

Weather

Weather conditions play a significant role. For example, in March 2016, a Flydubai Boeing 737 800 crashed during a second landing in Rostov-on-Don, which lasted about 2 hours. As a result, the liner did not have enough fuel to complete the maneuver.

Aircraft are also crashed due to the mistakes of dispatchers and the greed of airlines, which save on new parts, maintenance and do not delve into the problems of vehicle wear and tear.

List of largest aircraft accidents from 1990 to 2018

Over the past 20 years, the chronicles of plane crashes tell of the many victims of air travel. When compiling the list, disasters with more than 60 victims for the period from 1990 to 2018 were taken into account (the number of deaths is indicated in brackets):

05.91: B767 Thailand (223);
07.91: DC-8-61, Saudi Arabia (261);
10.91: C-130H-30 Indonesia (135);
08.92: Tu-134, Ivanovo region (84);
09.92: C-130H-LM, Nigeria (158);
09.92: A300, Nepal (167);
12.92: B727 Libya (157);
01.94: Tu-154, Irkutsk region (125);
03.94: A310, Kemerovo region (75);
04.94: A300 Japan (264);
06.94: Tu-154, China (160);
12.95: Tu-154, Khabarovsk Territory (98);
12.95: B757 Colombia (159);
01.96: An-32, Zaire (298);
02.96: B757, Atlantic Ocean (189);
07.96: B747, US (230);
08.96: Tu-154, Norway (141);
11.96: B727, Nigeria (144);
11.96: collision of B747 and Il-76, India (349);
08.97: B747 Guam (228);
09.97: A300 Indonesia (234);
02.98: A300, PRC (203);
09.98: MD-11 Canada (229);
10.99: B767, Atlantic Ocean (217);
01.2000: A310, Côte d'Ivoire (169);
08.2000: A320, Bahrain (143);
07.01: Tu-154, Irkutsk region (145);
09.01: terrorist attacks B767 and B757 (2977);
10.01: shot down by air defense missile systems, Tu-154, Krasnodar Territory (63);
10.01: A300B4, US (265);
05.02: BAC 1-11, Nigeria (149);
05.02: B747, Taiwan Strait (225);
07.02: Tu-154, Germany (71);
02.03: Il-76, Iran (275);
05.03: Yak-42, Turkey (75);
12.03: B727, Benin (141);
01.04: B737, Egypt (148);
08.04: terrorist attacks Tu-154 and Tu-134, Rostov and Tula regions (89);
08.05: MD-82, Venezuela (160);
11.05: B737 Indonesia (149);
05.06: A320, Krasnodar Territory (113);
07.06: A310, Irkutsk region (125);
08.06: Tu-154, Ukraine (170);
09.06: B737 Brazil (154);
07.07 : A320, Brazil (199);
08.08: MD-82, Spain (154);
09.08: В737, Perm region (88);
06.09: A330 Atlantic Ocean (228);
06.09: A310, Comoros (152);
07.09: Tu-154, Iran (168);
04.10: Tu-154, Smolensk region (96);
05.10: B737, India (158);
07.10: A321 Pakistan (152);
06.12: MD-83, Nigeria (163);
03.14: B777, Indian Ocean (239);
07.14: B777, Ukraine (298);
12.14: A320 Indonesia (162);
10.15: A321 Egypt (224);
03.15: A320, France (150);
06.15: KC-130B, Indonesia (143);
03.16: B737, Rostov region (62);
05.16: A320, Mediterranean (66);
11.16: Avro RJ85, Colombia (71);
12.16: Tu-154, Krasnodar Territory (92);
06.17: Y-8, Myanmar (122).

Recent crashes

Since the beginning of 2018, many terrible tragedies have occurred, primarily affecting Russia. This is largely due to the situation in Syria, where the Russian military is providing humanitarian assistance. By coincidence, several military vehicles were shot down from the air.

11 February 2018: An-148, Moscow region (71 victims);
18 February 2018: ATR-72, Iran (66 dead);
April 11, 2018: Il-76TD, Algeria (257 victims);
May 18, 2018: B737 Cuba (112 fatalities).

If we consider the global picture of crashes in 2018, they occurred on charter flights. Several accidents occurred with helicopters on the day of the wedding: one couple died while approaching the church due to heavy fog, the other couple escaped with a slight fright and continued the festivities after falling from a height of several meters.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to identify information about whether objects were broken from classified missions.

Which planes crash most often

The Russian aircraft industry is one of the largest in the world market in both civil and military aviation. Serial production of passenger airliners has been launched for the Tu-204, An-148, SSJ100, Il-96, CR 929 models. PAK TA, Il-114-300 and Il-76TD-90A are under development. The MC-21 model is undergoing flight tests.

Due to the modernization of the aviation industry, some models have lost their relevance. Among them are Tu-134 and Tu-154, developed back in the USSR. Some airlines still operate worn-out Tu-154s, which were taken out of production back in 1998. Accident statistics rank these two models as the most dangerous and unreliable. Throughout the history of flights on these sides, there have been many emergency situations that have caused more than one tragedy. IL-76 closes the top three in the incidents of Russian flights.

An example is the unsuccessful landing of the Tu-134 in Samara on March 17, 2007. The chassis could not withstand traction during the landing approach in poor weather conditions. As a result, the fuselage of the airliner began to fall apart, the wing and engine were torn off the plane. Most of the people managed to escape. 6 of 57 passengers were killed.

The crash with the amazing rescue of flight attendants took place on board the IL-86 in Moscow on July 28, 2002. It should be noted that this was the only fall of this model due to a technical malfunction. On board the airliner flying to St. Petersburg, there was only a crew of 16 people. The aircraft fell within a minute after takeoff in a forested strip near Sheremetyevo due to the failure of the stabilizers. The pilots did not have time to bring into action the reserve control of them. Only the female half of the composition, Tatyana Moiseeva and Arina Vinogradova, miraculously managed to get out of the flaming cabin. The fall was a foregone conclusion due to the illogical actions of the pilots.

In world practice, the most unpredictable aircraft is the Boeing 737 (made in the USA). In all disasters, people practically did not have a chance. According to statistics, at the end of September 2018, 189 units were lost. models where the largest share is occupied by the Boeing 737 800.

The last major plane crash occurred on May 18, 2018 in Cuba. The number of victims is 112 people. Flight Havana-Holguin crashed due to engine fire. The plane crashed into a farm. The list of survivors included a man and three women. Only 1 passenger managed to survive. Born in a shirt, 19-year-old Meilen Diaz Almager was sent to rehab for spinal injury and extensive burns.

The list of the most dysfunctional aircraft according to BusinessWeek is presented. The rating survey included aircraft operated around the world in quantities of 100 or more. When comparing the models, the indicator of the number of plane crashes for a certain number of flight hours was taken into account.

Anti-security rating

Boeing 737 JT8D;
IL-76;
Tu-154;
Airbus A310;
McDonnell-Douglas DC-9;
Tu-134;
Boeing 727;
McDonnell-Douglas MD-80;
McDonnell-Douglas MC-10;
McDonnell-Douglas MD-11;
Boeing 737 CFMI;
Boeing 757;
Airbus A320;
Boeing 767;
Boeing 737 NG;
Boeing 747.

Based on the data, it will not be possible to predict the outcome of the flight, since no one is immune from the tragedy. But the picture of plane crashes and their causes still allows us to reflect some statistical probabilities.

Safe aircraft

The Boeing 777 ranks first in terms of safety: not a single plane crash for 200 million hours. and 4 minor accidents. Despite the volume and capacity of up to 500 people, the engines do their job perfectly.

Airbus A340 is in second place: 5 accidents in 13 million hours. Due to the expensive service, not every airline can boast of this liner.

The predecessor model Airbus A330 takes the honorable 3rd place. No breakdowns or malfunctions. Only one disaster: 228 people drowned in the Atlantic Ocean in 2008. Aeroflot has more than 15 A330 models (VQ BEK, VQ BCQ and other board numbers). Pobeda has 20 Boeing 737 800 in its fleet (VQ BTI, VQ BTG, VQ BWG, etc.).

Reliable airlines

Various agencies and air safety committees of countries rate airlines on different characteristics. Airliners that fell in different periods (their number) and model range (safety) are taken into account.

British research examines airline punctuality based on total passenger traffic and number of flights.

In the world

According to EASA, the top twenty includes companies with a perfect reputation. They are recognized as the safest.

These include airlines:

Air New Zealand,
Alaska Airlines,
All Nippon Airways,
British Airways,
Cathay Pacific Airways,
Emirates,
Etihad Airways,
EVA Air,
Finnair,
Hawaiian Airlines,
Japan Airlines,
Lufthansa,
Qantas,
Royal Jordanian Airlines,
Scandinavian Airline System,
Singapore Airlines
Swiss,
Virgin Atlantic,
Virgin Australia,
Qatar Airways.

In the entire history of the existence of these companies, there has not been a single crashed flight.

In Russia

The Federal Air Transport Agency provides a transparent profile of each airline. The rating given below was built according to the volume and growth of passenger traffic, as well as depending on the kilometers flown.

Popularity rating

Aeroflot,
Siberia,
Russia,
Utair (UTair),
Ural Airlines (Ural Airlines),
Victory,
Globus (Globe),
Azur Air,
VIM-Avia,
Nordwind Airlines (North Wind).

Safety rating

Since passengers are more concerned with safety, there is another rating that takes into account both the number of plane crashes and accidents over the past 30 years. Human losses (death of passengers and bystanders) are also estimated.

Victory,
Ural Airlines,
S7 Airlines (Siberia),
Yakutia,
Nordavia,
UTair,
Yamal.

Transaero could have entered the top ten if it had not gone bankrupt back in 2015. She had a powerful new aircraft fleet and not a single disaster. The company's image is determined by technical equipment, and not by popularity among tourists for a certain period of time (including package tours).

Modern technologies and developments in aircraft construction make flights the safest. The probability of crashing is negligible. High-quality pilot training will be a factor influencing the development of the industry in the future. In Russia today there is a shortage of professional personnel. Old-school crews will soon be retiring, and young pilots may not be able to cope with an abnormal situation. Therefore, the quality and reliability of the liner come to the fore. This will significantly reduce the number of air crashes with insufficient experience or in difficult weather conditions.

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Old planes are to blame

The release date of the aircraft becomes the subject of close scrutiny by both the common man in the street and the authorities after each accident. Most often, the age of the liner is calculated for several decades, and this gives rise to the seemingly obvious conclusion: "They raised a wreckage into the sky - it fell apart." The logic is clear: corrupt managers bring old stuff from the Arizona garbage dumps, chase them along the routes in the tail and in the mane until they collapse. The authorities, in turn, are given a reason to fight old aircraft, most often of a particular brand. So, after the accident in Petrozavodsk on September 19 this year, Dmitry Medvedev raised the issue of removing all Tu-134 aircraft from flights, and after the Yaroslavl tragedy, he doubted the flight fate of all Yak-42s.

How widespread is the myth

Extremely.

What really is

Fedor Borisov, Senior Advisor, EPPA Russia:

The first reaction after any aircraft accident is usually very painful and harsh, but it usually has nothing to do with the nature of the event. Remember the old military expression: now I will figure it out as it should, and I will punish just anyone? So, after a plane crash, everything is usually the other way around - they punish just anyone, and only then they figure it out. And this is very bad, because it takes us away from looking for a real problem.

The first false trail that they usually follow is the old airplanes. It is false, because there are no old planes. There is no such definition in nature. For example, not so long ago I flew in Holland on an airplane developed in 1931 and manufactured in 1943. Yes, of course, it was repaired many times, a lot of everything inside was changed, but I flew wonderfully on it, and it is not old. An aircraft produced both 50 and 70 years ago is in itself safe if it meets the flight safety requirements. If you have all the nodes certified, if you monitor its condition, then the problem of the old aircraft is not safety, but solely its economic efficiency: how profitable is it for the airline to operate it.

Vasily Savinov, partner of Strategic Aviation Solutions Int. (SASI):

I would give an example for a simple layman. On the street we have a lot of three-year-old cars imported from abroad. And if you look at the absolute statistics, then the number of accidents in Russia is strikingly higher than in the same Western Europe. But this is not because we have three-year-old cars, but they have new ones - they drove them and gave them to us so that we could crash on them. It is more about driving culture, road conditions.

The situation is similar in aviation. If an imported aircraft is 10, 15, 20 years old, this is not an indicator that it is in poor condition. A simple example. China is buying exclusively new aircraft. After five years, they begin to get rid of these cars, but no one takes them. Because a fresh car after five years of operation by the Chinese can come to such a state that it is unprofitable to operate it further: spend more on repairs than earn. At the same time, we are now taking an 85-year-old car for our project in one of the CIS countries. It is in excellent condition, because it was operated by TNT, and with them one minute of delay in departure is already considered a delay, according to which the parsing takes place. Accordingly, one can imagine the state of this machine - it works better than a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Here's the difference between a 5 year old car and a 25 year old car. It all depends only on those hands that supported her.

Alexey, pilot of one of the leading Russian airlines:

From the pilot's point of view, there is absolutely no difference how old the plane is - whether it's a year, sometimes ten, or twenty. In any case, the pilot himself makes the final decision whether to take off or not. Because he, just like the passengers, wants to return home to his wife and children and in no case will fly with some serious malfunction.

There is, let's say, a list of malfunctions officially approved by the manufacturer, with which a flight is possible. But if the commander does not feel confident that he will fly with this malfunction, he will not fly. For example, autopilot. Imagine: you are driving a car, your cruise control has refused. This is problem? In general, no. But from the pilot's point of view, if you fly for a long time, far away, and manual piloting is an additional burden on the crew, the commander may simply refuse.

Yes, older aircraft have such malfunctions more often, but the decision is always up to the pilot.

Conclusion

Fedor Borisov:

We must proceed from the fact that the planes are not divided into western and non-western, good and bad, old and new, but into ready-to-fly and not ready-made. Everything else is a matter solely of the airlines' economics.

Correspondence of the myth to reality

Does not match.

Myth 2

Bad pilots are to blame

Investigations of almost every air accident find the human factor among the causes. At best, this is crew fatigue from exertion, at worst - alcohol, as was the case in the plane crash in Perm in September 2008. The passengers' confidence in the person at the helm has been declining lately. Well-known arguments: the pilot training system is bad, new good pilots are not taught, and old good ones all go to foreign companies, and the worst remain on regional airlines.

How widespread is the myth

What really is

Competition and desire to learn

Pavel, pilot-instructor:

Only a Russian citizen can be a member of a flight crew in a Russian airline. This situation has remained since the times of the USSR, and its preservation in due time was already lobbied by the Russian trade union of pilots. But there are more and more planes in the country, and they do not have time to train pilots. There was a time, about ten years, when people simply did not go to aviation, and at the same time trained pilots went, say, to business. There are a lot of them. Now there are enough young people, but they also come out very green, none, they have a lot to be taught.

And many graduates of institutes come to airlines without the desire for self-study. At the same time, the salaries are huge, disproportionately large. Even a young pilot now gets a lot, and at the same time he does not have to fight for his place. The shortage of personnel is such that in any case, if they are kicked out of one company, they will be taken to another.

On the one hand, this is good, because it is pointless to pressure the pilot to fly out with some kind of malfunction, because you will not scare him by dismissal - how to fire a person if you have a list of “required” hanging, and there are pilots, pilots, pilots. And you're going to fire the person you're running and looking for?

On the other hand, this state of affairs is relaxing for the pilots. If Russian airlines were allowed to recruit foreign pilots, as is done in very many countries of the world, this would at once eliminate many problems, including those related to security. In addition, it would be easier to master the new generation of aircraft.

The level of education

Pavel, pilot-instructor:

Education must be adequate and modern. Well, why should a person who is graduating from a school know the energy of the Tu-154 B2, of which there are already a few? Why memorize these numbers if he is going to the Boeing 747?

People over sixty sit in institutes. And not because they are such good teachers, but because they have nowhere to go. And there are no young teachers.

There are many “masters of the old school” among the pilots. If you look closely, you can see that some of our major airlines "Boeing" take off Tupolev-style, slowly, slowly. Because the commander is sitting there, who says: “It was like this on Tu-154 - it means that here we will take off in the same way, and that’s all.” Because he is over fifty, why should he follow books, follow technologies? And on the right sits a young co-pilot and does not reread him. Our people don't know how to listen. If you politely said to someone: “I would pay attention to this problem,” they will look at you and say: “So, what kind of young upstart is there?
Sit and be silent. "

If you start to teach such a "master" new things, he will send you, because well, he is a master. People negatively perceive the message that someone might know something better than they do. Although this is the norm. And a true master is able to perceive new things. We have not formed this culture.

About alcohol

Vasily Savinov:

Let's remember the disaster in Perm. As it was said in the conclusion of the IAC, the aircraft commander was “not in flight form”, and the qualifications of the co-pilot did not allow him to pilot the aircraft. As a result, when the commander, being "not in flight", tried to take control of the aircraft, he simply turned it over, put it in a dive and stuck it into the ground.

But I can say that now it is a relative rarity. Compared to Soviet times, drunkenness at the wheel has clearly declined. Because during the Soviet years, control over alcohol on board was much less.

In addition, alcohol is, perhaps, the only thing for which you can fly from work on the move today. At least in a responsible company, alcohol is the door to the exit. And the market is tight. Everyone knows everyone. Therefore, as soon as a person with such a diagnosis leaves the company, it's like a wolf ticket for life.

About maybe

Fedor Borisov:

Almost every catastrophe that has taken place in Russia in recent years is a human factor, and almost every catastrophe is where it was said mentally or aloud “maybe we’ll get through”.

But this is not a problem of aviation, but of the country as a whole, which lives according to the principle "I want the law to be observed, but I am always ready to make an exception for myself." So some pilots: I have a rule, I know that it is dangerous, but I will still fly. Not because there is a bad manager over me who will deprive me of something, but simply because I have to return home, because my wife is at home. And I am a master, and since I am a master, it means that I will cope with this task, because I have already taken off ten times in such a situation, and everything is fine. And for the eleventh time, a small additional factor was added that no one expected - and that's it.

The person has this maybe in his head, and you will not do anything with this avos until his co-pilot says to this person: “Sorry, father-commander, I am now going to the authorities and report that I will not fly with you because you want to kill me and you want to kill these wonderful people behind our back. And what you are doing is unacceptable. " And when he is not afraid to hear in response "Oh you, young informer", when he is not alone, but when there are two, ten, fifty such people, then it will become a system.

Although positive changes began, and this happened, in my opinion, when airlines that either fly to the West or enter into global alliances simply realized that changing this culture was in line with their goals. The same "Aeroflot" began to move in this direction not yesterday, but when it was planned to join SkyTeam.

Conclusion

Vasily Savinov:

The cause of catastrophes by seventy to eighty percent is, in one way or another, a human factor. People who relied on chance. It is this, and not old aircraft and individual spare parts, that is the main and main reason that needs to be eliminated.

Moreover, the human factor is not necessarily the crew. It's a long chain. For example, the same egregious case with Perm. The commander was, to put it mildly, out of shape. But, besides this, there were violations in the training of pilots: after training, they flew for some time on their old aircraft, and did not immediately switch to new ones. And they lost a new flying skill. That is, people were not very ready to fly this plane. Secondly, the plane was released with defects, which, in principle, were non-departure: it had different engine thrust. All this taken together is the human factor, and not just “captain
got drunk and killed everyone. "

Correspondence of the myth to reality

Corresponds to a great extent.

Myth 3

Old airports are to blame

Infrastructure problems are remembered when accidents occur at provincial airports. Experts agree: only Moscow airports are technically equipped at a modern level, plus
three or four across the country. When, for example, a plane crashed in Petrozavodsk, it turned out that the local airport did not have a modern landing system. In turn, most of the old Soviet and Russian aircraft are not equipped with modern ground proximity warning systems. And bad runways at the same time do not allow new aircraft to be received.

How widespread is the myth

What really is

Vasily Savinov:

Bad runways are more of a problem for airlines, which have to invest more in chassis repairs and change tires more often. But disasters do not happen from this. It's just that the airline makes a decision: we fly to this airport, and we don't fly to this one. For example, Aeroflot does not fly to Norilsk. Although, believe me, this flight is very cost effective. But at some point, the airline decided not to fly: the chassis will come out more expensive. There is a bad streak, it is known for its very large hunchback and brokenness. The airport does nothing with it, and carriers vote with their feet. So they voted.

Light and navigation equipment is also not the most important thing. I can give you an example. For about a year and a half I was one of the top managers of the Karaganda airport. This is a “B” category airport. There are much better equipped airports in Kazakhstan - Almaty and Astana. There are equipment and radars - everything is there. But the weather conditions are always worse there. Therefore, when the weather is bad, all superclass planes leave for landing in Karaganda, where the equipment is worse, but the weather conditions are better.

Conclusion

Alexey, pilot:

This issue should be looked at in a comprehensive manner. Of course, it's good to have good infrastructure, it's good to have a third lane. But this does not affect flight safety.

Correspondence of the myth to reality

Does not match.

Myth 4

Levitin is to blame for everything

The question of the resignation of Igor Levitin from the post of Minister of Transport is raised after each plane crash. As well as the question of the competence of all officials in charge of aviation - they did not build, overlooked, did not control. Since civil aviation does not exist in a vacuum, and in our country everything is permeated with corruption, it also explains the fact that our planes are falling: because someone paid and supplied the wrong part. And how can one now determine how much personal responsibility in plane crashes and how much collective responsibility?

How widespread is the myth

What really is

Vasily Savinov:

The current state of aviation is not a one-man problem. If you change the main traffic cop in Moscow, will the cars stop fighting? Of course not. Maybe something will change, maybe somewhere out there, in a separate place, the roads will become a little better. But in general, the situation will not change dramatically. Now the same Levitin in the Ministry of Transport does not have a team, there is no concept that would show what Russian aviation should be in five years, in ten years, that is, a clear understanding of where we are going, what we need to change.

Yes, there are plans to build up the country with new runways. But this is not a concept. This is a story about how regional budgets receive a lot of money, and then they use it. But this has nothing to do with safety.

Fedor Borisov:

Security consists of three components. The first is the regulatory documents that regulate safety. And, in principle, in Russia the normative documents are normal. Something can be tweaked, probably, but they do not contain anything that would program the murder of their own citizens.

The second is effective control. That is, this is the very official who will come and check the implementation of this document. And with this we have some difficulty. Because there is a basic law: people commit violations when they are allowed to commit violations. For example, when it was said that small companies should leave the market because they are unsafe, it was actually the state that declared itself insolvent as a market regulator. Because it raises its hands and says: "Guys, we cannot control, because there is apparently corruption, and therefore they are breaking the law." But this is a little funny. Because guys, you yourself regulate this market. And now you say, "We will close them because we are not dealing with the regulation." Or, translating into Russian: “We take bribes, and therefore we will close them, because not to take bribes, sorry, we cannot”.

And the third is the culture of airline management. We have made progress with this, but the Federal Air Transport Agency and the Ministry of Transport have nothing to do with this at all. Progress comes at the expense of large companies, which have been driven by global alliances that they need to join in order to win in global markets.

Vasily Savinov:

In addition to flight safety, the aviation authorities have another important task - to help the airlines of their country to develop the market, to help people develop their business. But they cannot do it. Because in their understanding, business is kickbacks. For example, you allowed airline “A” to fly to Antalya, but didn’t allow airline “B”, and grateful airline “A” thanked you very much. This is what they know how to do wonderfully. But what should be done to make Russian airlines feel good, so that they can develop, so that they can compete on equal terms with foreign carriers and expand their market share - this is what few of the aviation authorities know. But this should be part of national policy.

Conclusion

Fedor Borisov:

The planes are not falling because of Levitin. He is just one of the elements of the overall chain. What is Levitin's fault as a minister is that when you fly on airplanes, you pay twice as much. If you fly in Europe, you are probably wondering: why is a ticket from Munich to Rome costing half the price of a ticket from Moscow to Krasnodar? The first thought that comes to your mind is the airline bastards. But a study of all the costs of airlines, the structure of the market, how it is formed, will convince you that, of course, airlines also take an active part in this system, but the aviation authorities make a significant contribution. It is they who provide small monopolies in various aviation directions, where people scoop up all transportation for themselves and dictate prices.

WITHconformity of the myth to reality

Partially compliant.

Myth 5

It's all the fault of the "zhivopyrochki"

Small airlines take the brunt of nearly every accident. After Petrozavodsk and Yaroslavl, on behalf of the President, Rosaviatsia and the Ministry of Transport are preparing documents that, starting next year, will oust those air carriers from the market that will not have ten, and in another year - twenty planes.

How widespread is the myth

What really is

About buying new aircraft

Vasily Savinov:

The decision to buy new aircraft should not be imposed from above, it should be the decision of the airline itself. You can't force me to buy a McLaren - my Saab is enough for me, it fits my budget, my wishes and my driving style. And if they say to me: “By a presidential decree, you must sell everything and buy McLaren for a million,” I say: “Guys, I'm sorry, I can't,
physically I can’t. ”

The biggest problem of most of our regional airlines (except for UTair) is that they are companies of two, three or four small planes. It is difficult for them even to maintain these planes in proper condition. Therefore, when they are told: tomorrow you have to buy a new Boeing, which costs 120 million (or even 10 million), where will they get it? No bank will give them a loan: they have nothing to put as collateral.

And if they find money for the plane, they will need to spend half a million dollars on retraining one crew.

About regional transportation

Vasily Savinov:

It's easy to kill small airlines, in five minutes - just take and withdraw the certificate or not renew the airworthiness certificate for the plane. Yes, from the point of view of the aviation authorities, a woman with a cart is easier for a mare. But then what will all the locals fly in the taiga?

Fedor Borisov:

There are places where there is no railway connection at all. Or, as on Lake Baikal, there are points to which the plane will fly in two hours, and by train it takes six days. At the same time, there is an airline flying there, which has five An-24s in its fleet, and their total cost is 2-3 million dollars, no more. Accordingly, in order to buy one foreign car, they need to sell everything of their own and something else.

Therefore, if we ban the An-24 and Yak-42, this will have the most unpleasant consequences. In reality, this will be the collapse of the regionals. Because there is no one to replace them. First of all, large companies will not come to these routes, because they do not have enough planes and pilots even for profitable flights - why should they divert resources on almost unprofitable ones? The same "Aeroflot" will do this only in one case - if they call him from the place where other planes were banned, and they say: it is necessary to plug the hole.

But what does it mean to "plug the hole"? Regional transport is likely to have to be subsidized. This means that you have to get a huge amount of money from somewhere. And we seem to be facing a new crisis, we are talking about the need to slaughter the budget for all positions. But they will still get the money, because people in villages or towns will crawl out with placards to the square and say: we have been cut off from the mainland.

Then Savelyev (the head of Aeroflot. - "RR") will be called and asked: "Can you do it?" And here is the second stage. They will find money for him for subsidies, and he will say: “But I do not have planes that can fly there. I have a Superjet, but it will not sit there, because only the An-24 turboprop can sit there. " Where can we get the An-24? And nowhere - everything, they are mothballed, and the airlines are disbanded.

In addition to the option of subsidies, there is an option to launch a monopolist and give him the opportunity to set prices himself. I will explain what will happen with an example. Murmansk and Apatity are two neighboring airports. Four airlines fly to Murmansk - I don't know how it is now, but last year the cheapest one-way ticket cost 3,000 rubles. Moscow - Apatity - one carrier, Nordavia. And the ticket there is 20 thousand one way. Moreover, Apatity is 100 kilometers closer to Moscow.

Therefore, if small airlines are liquidated, we will have three things. Some of the routes will definitely be closed. Others will fly less often - not every day, but once or twice a week. Well, and the third is, of course, the increase in tariffs. Because small regional airlines make a huge contribution to the pricing environment, these "snickers" quite fly for themselves and create competition.

Conclusion

Fedor Borisov:

Yes, of course, we are talking about the fact that large airlines have better service quality, security control, perhaps, is more reliable. But the problem with the quality of service is not cured by amputation, like an abscess on the leg.

So we want to integrate into the world economy, and here in Moscow every second person speaks English, because the city lives by business, here you need to know English. And in the villages no one speaks English, because there is a problem with teachers. So let's cut off their languages for all of them and remove this problem - they will have a good reason not to speak English. The second solution is to send teachers there. What I mean is that we have to teach these small regional airlines. Yes, it's hard, as hard to take a country boy and make him a university graduate. It is more difficult than taking a Muscovite who studied in a special school, but it still needs to be done.

Correspondence of the myth to reality

Does not match.

In recent days, news feeds are literally full of news about tragic incidents in the American army. Of course, emergency situations in the "Stars and Stripes" happened before, as elsewhere, they occur regularly. But so much at once!

In Tennessee, a pilot was killed in the crash of an F-18 from the US Navy aerobatics team. On the same day, the F-16 of the Thunderbirds aerobatic team crashed in Colorado: the pilot survived, having ejected in time.

At the same time, information came in that three servicemen were killed and six more were missing near the Owl Creek training ground in Texas. The incident was due to the fall of an army truck into the river.

The American military is also unlucky outside the country. So, in Estonia, where the large-scale Baltops exercises started the day before, the first emergency occurred even before the maneuvers began: one of the three American B-52s did not reach Tallinn due to a breakdown. Fortunately, there were no casualties here.

Colossus with feet of clay

The US Army positions itself as the strongest, most powerful and invincible. According to the portal Global Firepower Index, which regularly analyzes the state of military power of 126 countries of the world, the United States really ranks first in the ranking of the most militarily powerful states (Russia is in second place, China is third) ... GFI experts assess, as a rule, the state of the armed forces, in accordance with the total population, the economic state of states, and also compare specific indicators of the technical equipment of the army and navy.

Meanwhile, this is not the first time that signals have appeared indicating the discrepancy between these rating studies and real situations. The "colossus" of the American army is increasingly showing "feet of clay". For example, a recent congressional hearing addressed the alarming situation in military aviation and raised concerns about the growing number of aircraft accidents.

The head of the Armed Services Committee, Congressman Mark Thornbury, was blunt: in his opinion, the troops were not ready to fully implement the US military strategy. In 2016 alone, the Marine Corps aviation recorded 3.96 aircraft accidents for every 100,000 flight hours, while earlier the average recorded over the past decade did not exceed 2.15. The number of various incidents in the aviation of the ground forces has also significantly increased.

Moreover, these incidents were not always associated only with pilot errors. The American military notes that in a number of cases, problems arose due to poor preparation of equipment, insufficient level of service, lack of repair and renovation in the required volume. And this is in aviation, but what can we say about the ground forces!

James Hasick, a researcher at the Brent Scowcroft Center for International Security, pointed out in a recent article for the National Interest that due to a shortage of funds, the American army has no real plan to replace Abrams tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and Paladin self-propelled gun mounts before 2030. The analyst quoted in his publication the words of General David Bassett, who is responsible for purchasing ground weapons for the army: "Many years ago we were limited by technology, today we are limited by a lack of money."

Money down the drain

Generals are not particularly diplomatic at all, are not experienced in the intricacies of politics, they are inclined to "cut from the shoulder." For example, speaking not so long ago before a House Commission to discuss a new defense budget for 2017, General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said frankly: in the coming years, they will not be able to confront threats that the country may have to deal with. all branches of the armed forces.

Problems with combat readiness (and the general had them in mind), he explained by the years of "unstable financial situation." In particular, according to Dunford, the Navy and the Marines will not be ready to operate at the required level until 2020, the Air Force - until 2028.

However, analysts are convinced that the state of combat readiness, and especially the training of personnel, is not always associated only with the "infusion" of money, which is traditionally required by American military leaders. The US defense budget already exceeds the indicators of other continents, reaching exorbitant amounts.

At the same time, as noted by The Economist, countries such as Russia and China, if not superior to the United States in terms of defense investments, then certainly benefit from the effectiveness of these expenditures. The magazine draws attention to the Russian and Chinese armies, various weapons are being improved, a special stake is made on the training of personnel.

And yet, the US military does not tire of repeating: the problems in their army are caused precisely by the budget cuts. For example, retired Major General Robert Scales recently announced that the US Army was "defeated" for the third time since the middle of the 20th century. According to the general, cuts in military spending led to a sharp decline in field exercises, untimely renewal of military equipment, and a decrease in combat effectiveness. All this has a detrimental effect on the morale of the military, in connection with which the leadership in Washington, Robert Scales, called "ungrateful, anti-historical and strategically deaf."

An army of suicides and rapists?

Indeed, there are many facts that testify to the other side of the problems in the state of the American army. We are talking about poor training of personnel, an extremely low level of moral readiness, indiscipline, and the dominance of criminals.

In recent years alone, shooting incidents have been recorded at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas (two soldiers died here), at Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas (two wounded), at Fort Lee Base in Virginia (killed female soldier).

Three soldiers were killed and two were injured in a gun battle with each other at Fort Hood, Texas (the gunman committed suicide). Two National Guardsmen were injured in the "fight" at Millington Base in Tennessee. The fire even opened in the US Navy complex in Washington, where an employee dismissed from service for inappropriate behavior killed 12 and injured 8 people. The attacker himself was later shot by the police.

Human Rights Watch recently released a shocking report revealing yet another secret side of the US military's life that affects the morale of the army. It turns out that in recent years, thousands of military personnel have been sexually abused.

Human Rights Watch staff in their report stressed that the Pentagon knows about the problem of violence, and US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter even calls on his subordinates "to boldly report all such incidents that undermine the foundations of the American army." However, as human rights activists note, those who dared to report such incidents to the command were hastily dismissed under various pretexts.

Is it possible to embrace the immensity?

Nonetheless, American leader Barack Obama considers all talk of the country's decline and the weakness of its military to be "political chatter." This is how he characterized the current rhetoric that "our enemies are getting stronger and America is getting weaker." According to the head of the United States, such statements are "the handiwork of the Republicans, aspiring to the presidency, who declare that the United States is losing its position in the world, while its opponents are getting stronger."

In his last State of the Union address to the US Congress, Obama reiterated that the United States is the most powerful nation on earth. As for the state of the country's army, according to the American leader, "the United States spends on its armed forces more than the next eight powers combined." “No country attacks us or our allies, because it knows that it will be thrown into ruins,” Barack Obama stressed in his message.

But be that as it may, the opinion of experts about the situation with the country's military power is far from being so enthusiastic. Many of them tend to assess Obama's performance as supreme commander-in-chief mostly negative. In particular, according to James Carafano, a leading expert at the Heritage Foundation research center (a strategic institute for the study of international politics), in recent years in the United States there has been not only a decline in the number of personnel of the armed forces, but also a drop in combat effectiveness in comparison with that which was present in as of 11 September 2001.

According to an expert who cites the index of US military power calculated by the Heritage Foundation, the ability of the American army to dominate at least two fronts of hostilities is currently assessed as "extremely weak."

It is the insufficient attention of the country's leadership to the issues of the real development of the army, improving its technical component and - especially - raising the level of personnel training, according to analysts, that ultimately leads to a sharp jump in the number of accidents and incidents.

According to experts, including the already mentioned James Carafano and retired General Robert Scales, the large-scale involvement of the American military in activities outside the country, including constant participation in hostilities, also affects the situation. Attempts to "embrace the immense" lead to the fact that the soap bubble called "US Army" is increasingly bursting deafeningly, leading to unjustified casualties and losses ...

Dmitry Sergeev

However, today air travel is considered the safest form of travel. However, as we know from official reports, plane crashes also happen in our 21st century. When scientific and technological progress has reached unprecedented heights, planes with people on board continue to fall.

Airplane crash statistics

In terms of the number of plane crashes that occurred around the world from 1945 to March 2012, the top three were the United States (784 cases), Russia (326 cases) and Canada. There, over the specified period of time, 177 plane crashes were recorded.

All fewer air accidents have occurred in Argentina and Nigeria. In these countries during the same time there were 40 and 38 plane crashes. These facts speak only of those plane crashes in which there are human casualties. Aircraft crashes where there were no casualties among passengers, these statistics do not take into account.

Events preceding the occurrence of an emergency during flight

The design of a modern airliner and its onboard multistage control system minimize possible emergency situations on board the aircraft. But a disaster in the air and an aircraft crash can result from unfavorable weather conditions or improper operation of ground services regulating the movement of air transport, as well as mistakes made by technicians when servicing aviation equipment on the ground.

Incorrect actions of the crew or mistakes during piloting can also lead to an imminent plane crash. All this together is called the human factor. It is he who often becomes the invisible companion of plane crashes or fatal accidents.

Violations of the regulations during the preventive inspection of the main components and assemblies of the aircraft or the installation of low-quality components during the maintenance of air transport are the main reasons for the failure of various systems. This entails the occurrence of an emergency during the flight, which may result in a plane crash.

In order to reduce the influence of the human factor, as a result of which structural elements of the aircraft body, engines and mechanisms of the control system may be damaged, the Ministry of Transport in 2014 tightened the procedure for certification of pilots and their admission to work in civil aviation. Also, control over the actions of technical personnel serving aviation equipment was strengthened.

As practice shows, most air crashes occur during takeoff or landing of an aircraft. During the flight, when the aircraft has already reached the required altitude and is on a given course, collisions of aircraft or the ingress of foreign objects into the engines are not excluded. Although both of these phenomena are rare, nevertheless, they have already taken place. And they are also included in the list of common causes of plane crashes.

The loudest plane crashes and their causes

A striking example of how the notorious human factor became the cause of the plane crash is the crash of the Yak-42 plane, which took place on September 7, 2011 at the Tunoshna airport in the city of Yaroslavl. It is worth recalling that the Yaroslavl hockey team Lokomotiv and its coaching staff died in that plane crash. After an investigation and analysis of the crew's negotiations, it was established that the plane crash was due to uncoordinated actions of the crew during takeoff.

The plane crash that happened on the night of July 2, 2002 over Germany also caused a great resonance. Then, over Lake Constance near the German city of Uberlingen, a Russian passenger plane TU-154 of Bashkir Airlines and a cargo Boeing-757, which provides international cargo transportation, collided in the air. In that crash, 71 people died, including 52 children, whom their parents sent on vacation to Spain.

The investigation and study of materials on this plane crash took a long time and the conclusions were very controversial. The Swiss air traffic control officers tried to shift the responsibility onto the Russian pilots, who, in their opinion, did not understand their commands in English. As a result, the Swiss air traffic controllers, who were absent from their workplaces at that time, were themselves found guilty of this plane crash and the death of people.

As a rule, it is not just one factor that leads to a plane crash, but a whole series of events that have caused irreversible processes in flight safety. And such a chain of tragic accidents remains the main cause of plane crashes so far.