The airliner airbus a310 took off from. Accident of A310 - a child was at the helm. Crew talks, chronology of events

Plane crashA310 near Mezhdurechensk - the disaster that occurred on the night of March 22-23, 1994 with the airliner Airbus A310-308 of Aeroflot. Because of a child who accidentally turned off the autopilot and took control, the plane went into a tailspin and crashed near Mezhdurechensk. All 75 people on board were killed.

Events

On March 22, 1994 at 20:39 local time, Aeroflot's Airbus A310 took off from the runway of Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport and headed for Hong Kong. The 63 passengers taken on board had nothing to worry about: the A310 with the assigned name M. Glinka was one of the first new European aircraft delivered to Aeroflot's fleet just a couple of years ago, the aircraft was operated by experienced pilots, and 9 flight attendants worked in the cabin.

The flight proceeded normally and, 3.5 hours after takeoff, the crew commander called his two children into the cockpit: daughter Yana and son Eldar. When the plane flew in the Novokuznetsk area, he allowed first his daughter and then his son to sit in the ship's commander's chair. In addition, there was a family friend in the cockpit, also an Aeroflot pilot who was on the same flight as a passenger.

Before allowing the children to take the command chair, the commander turned on the autopilot. First, the commander's daughter, 13-year-old Yana Kudrinskaya, sat at the helm. She did not try to take any action to control the plane. After her, the captain's son, 15-year-old Eldar, sat at the helm. The teenager held on to the steering wheel, rocking it slightly from side to side. This did not bother the crew, as the plane was under the control of the autopilot. However, in the end, Eldar applied a force of 8-10 kg to the steering wheel for 30 seconds, which led to a partial shutdown of the autopilot, which stopped giving commands to the ailerons - the crew did not know about this feature of the autopilot. Also, the pilots did not notice the light indication, and there was no sound signal.

Eldar was the first to notice the roll of the plane and reported it. However, for several seconds both professional pilots could not understand the reason for the abnormal behavior of the aircraft.

The aircraft was banked to the right at a speed of about 1.5 ° per second, and soon the right bank reached 45 °, which is above the permissible limit. When the crew members noticed that the autopilot was disabled, they tried to take their seats again.

The co-pilot, having relaxed, strongly pushed his seat back and at a critical moment, due to overloads, could not return to his seat. The commander also, due to overloads, could not sit in his chair. As a result, in conditions of severe loss of altitude with a roll, the only person to fly the plane was a 15-year-old boy. He was even more confused by the fact that he heard many commands from three people while often not understanding the pilot's jargon.

In the meantime, the roll had already reached 90 °, and the plane began to lose altitude. In order to prevent further reduction, the autopilot increased the pitch angle to such an extent that the aircraft began to quickly lose speed and went into a stall. The co-pilot completely turned off the machine gun and managed to get the plane out of the stall by lowering the nose. The congestion lessened, and the commander was finally able to get his son out of his chair and take his workplace. The pilots brought the plane into normal flight mode, but could not recognize their spatial position in time.

The airliner Airbus A310 with 75 people on board touched the edges of trees and crashed into the forest near Mezhdurechensk. No one survived.

Airplane crash investigation

Search and rescue operations at the crash site took quite a long time: the remains of passengers and the wreckage of the aircraft were scattered within a radius of 2 km. Later, the found parts of the aircraft were transported to the hangar of the aviation enterprise of the Novokuznetsk airport, where they were attached to the frame according to the shape of the aircraft. In the same place, representatives of Aeroflot and Airbus began to study the circumstances of the disaster.

The first versions of the causes of the disaster seemed exotic: the plane either collided with a natural celestial body, or became a victim of a UFO. These assumptions were based on the fact that the airliner flew at an altitude of 10,100 meters, strictly maintained all the specified flight parameters, the crew did not give any alarm signals, there was no information about the failure of any instruments, the plane was controlled by an experienced crew. Later, there were rumors about an alleged terrorist attack and depressurization of the aircraft, which caused the instant death of the crew and passengers.

The Chairman of the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) Vladimir Kofman admitted several years later: “ The case is unprecedented. At that time, as they say, we did not have enough conscience or courage to declare that the plane was killed by a child. But the recording on the voice recorder and further investigation, which lasted a whole year, showed that other options were excluded. After this incident, the journalists started talking in chorus about the "pilot's fault", the "human factor" in matters of accidents and so on. And we thought about something else - about the role of the co-pilot. After all, children were put at the wheel before. In fact, there is nothing wrong if the kid sits in the pilot's seat while the airliner is controlled by the autopilot. The question is: what did your partner do - the "technical reserve" of a happy father, while he was busy with his son? Instead of keeping an eye on the instruments and, if something happens, quickly take control, he went to the corner of the cockpit to shoot Eldar on a video camera. And he missed the moment when the boy put the airbus on manual control and did not notice the deep roll into which the plane went. When the pilots realized it, it was already too late ...».

Consequences

Changes were made to the aircraft documentation and the Aeroflot pilot training plan. In particular, now in the flight manuals of all Airbus A310s, a clause has been made on the spontaneous deactivation of automatic aileron control when a force of more than 10 kg is applied to the steering wheel for 30 or more seconds. During flights on simulators performed by Russian instructor pilot Vladimir Biryukov together with Airbus test pilots, it turned out that if both pilots could not reach the controls, then the automatic control system could quickly restore straight-line safe flight

Transcript of negotiations

The plane is flying over Novokuznetsk. Commander Jan's daughter sits at the helm.

Co-pilot: Novokuznetsk, Aeroflot 593rd, we are passing your point at flight level 10100.
FAC: Well, Yana, will you fly?
Yana: No!
FAC: Don't press the buttons. Don't touch this red one! ..
Yana: Dad, can you twist this?
FAC: Do you see Novokuznetsk on the left?
Yana: Are we flying so low?
PIC: Ten thousand one hundred meters.
Yana: That's a lot, right?
FAC: A lot ...

Yana leaves the commander's chair.

FAC: Wait, take your time ...
Yana: I'm already careful ...

The son of Eldar sits in the commander's chair.

Makarov: The pilot is filming.
Eldar: Are you filming?
Makarov: Taking pictures.
Eldar: Can I twist this?
FAC: Yes! If you turn left, where will the plane go?
Eldar: Left!
FAC: Turn! Turn left!
Eldar: Great!
FAC: Is the plane going to the left?
Eldar: Coming.

4 minutes pass.

Eldar: Why is he turning?
FAC: Does he turn himself?
Eldar: Yes.
FAC: Hold the steering wheel!
Co-pilot: Speed!
FAC: Turn left! To the left! Right! To the left! The earth is here! Eldar, come out! Get out, Eldar! Come out! Come out! Come out! Come out! Come out, I say! Full throttle!
Co-pilot: Got gas!
FAC: Full throttle!
Co-pilot: Dal!
FAC: Full gas!
Co-pilot: The speed is very high!
FAC: So! We leave! Right! Right leg! Remove the gases!
Co-pilot: I got it right!
FAC: Quietly-oh-oh-nechku!
Co-pilot: Bl ... b, again!
FAC: Don't turn right! Let's go out now! Everything is fine! Slowly on yourself, on the sly! Slowly, I say!
Short crackling sound.
End of recording.

A passenger plane crashed in the Indian Ocean. An Airbus A310-300 of Yemenia Airways, flying from Sana'a to the capital of the Comoros, fell into the water off the coast of the northern island of the Comoros archipelago. So far, nothing is known about the fate of the 150 people on board.

An Airbus A310-300 passenger plane crashed near the Comoros, located in the Mozambique Strait of the Indian Ocean. Yemenia Airlines, which owned the plane, was making a connecting flight, according to Reuters. On Monday at 08.55 Yemen time (09.55 Moscow time) Airbus A330-200, owned by the company, took off on flight IY749 from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport to the airport of the Yemen capital Sanaa with a stopover in Marseilles. Having reached Sana'a at 19.50 Moscow time, the agency reports, the passengers of the A330-200 transferred to the A310-300 and at 21.30 Moscow time departed on flight IY626 to the Comoros. They were supposed to arrive at Moroni airport at 03.15 Moscow time.

However, an hour before the scheduled landing, the Airbus disappeared from the radar.

According to an unnamed employee of the local airport, quoted by Reuters, the pilot of the liner managed to inform the dispatchers that he would soon be landing, and then contact with him was lost.

Soon, officials from the Comoros authorities announced that the liner had crashed into the Indian Ocean. According to the Qatari TV channel Al-Jazeera, the plane crashed off the coast of the northern island of the Comoros archipelago - Ngazidja. So far, representatives of local authorities cannot name the place of the fall more precisely. According to the Agency for Aviation Safety and Navigation in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA), rescuers have already headed to the alleged site of the tragedy. Until now, nothing is known about the fate of the passengers of the liner. "Most likely, the plane is somewhere in 8 kilometers from the coast. Civil and military ships have already set off in search," - quoted by CNN TV channel ASECNA spokesman Ibrahim Kassim.

A headquarters has already been set up in Paris to assist the relatives of passengers flying with Yemenia Airways. As reported on the website of the airline itself, its representatives do not intend to communicate with the press. The number of passengers varies. Thus, AFP reports 147 passengers.

According to Sky News, there were 11 crew members and 142 passengers on board. The same numbers are quoted on Yemenia Airways' official website. It is only known for certain that most of those on board the liner are citizens of the Comoros and the French.

At about 10.30 Moscow time, rescuers found the wreckage of the plane and the bodies of two passengers.

This is the fourth incident for Yemenia Airways. From 2001 to 2006, not a single person was injured in accidents involving the company's aircraft. Yemenia Airways is 51% owned by the government of Yemen and 49% by the government of Saudi Arabia. The company's air transport fleet consists of two Airbus A330-200 aircraft, four Airbus 310-300 and four Boeing 737-800.

What is Airbus A310

The Airbus A310 is a small wide-body medium-long-haul passenger aircraft. It is one of the smallest wide-body aircraft in the world. In mid-1975, the designers of the Airbus Industry consortium began preliminary development of the A300B10 passenger aircraft project, which was a variant of the A300B4 with a shortened fuselage. Simultaneously with this, the development of the A310-200 airliner with a flight range of more than 5 thousand kilometers began.

The first flight of the prototype A310-200 took place on April 3, 1982. Regular operation of the aircraft began the following year. In March 1983, designers from Airbus Industry began developing the A310-300 for long haul flights. The main difference from the previous model was the presence of an additional fuel tank with a capacity of more than 6 thousand liters. in the horizontal tail and the use of an automated fuel transfer system to maintain optimal balance of the aircraft in flight.

In 1985 the A310-300 entered regular service. Since 1991, the aircraft has been certified by the Aviaregister of the Russian Federation, as a result of which it received the right to operate in Russian airlines. At various times, A310s were operated by Aeroflot and Transaero. Currently, this type of aircraft is used only by S7 Airlines, which has seven A310s at its disposal.

The total number of A310 aircraft delivered by Airbus by 2008 is 255, of which 39 airlines operate 220 aircraft. To date, all A310 airliners in service have performed over four million flights with a total duration of about 10.5 million flight hours. Production of the A310 was officially completed in 2007.

Airbus A310 incidents

In July 1992, an Airbus A310 belonging to a Thai airline went off course due to a misunderstanding between the pilot and the controller, and crashed near Kathmandu. All 113 people on board were killed.

In March 1994, the pilot of the A310 en route from Moscow to Hong Kong put his 16-year-old son at the helm, who accidentally turned off the autopilot. The plane went into a tailspin and crashed near Mezhdurechensk. All 75 people on board were killed.

In March 1995, in Romania, the A310 pilot stopped driving, forgetting to turn off the autopilot. The plane crashed near the Romanian city of Balotesti. 60 people were killed.

In November 1998, another A310 crashed while landing at a Thai airport due to unfavorable weather conditions. 101 of the 146 people on board were killed.

In January, not far from Abidjan, another liner of this model fell into the sea. The crash occurred shortly after take-off due to a crew error. 169 of the 179 people on board the A310 were killed.

There were no casualties during the accident involving the A310 in Austria in December 2000. The car's chassis jammed, and the pilots made an emergency landing in a field near the village of Schwechat.

In July 2007, when landing in Irkutsk, the A310 engine went into takeoff mode, which caused the liner to crash to the ground. 125 of 203 people died.

Another incident was recorded in June 2006. The A310 landing in Khartoum crashed and caught fire. 30 of the 214 people on board were killed.

March 22, 1994 in the area of ​​Mezhdurechensk (Kemerovo region) at 20 o'clock. 58 minutes The Airbus A-310, which belonged to Russian Airlines and was flying on the route Moscow - Hong Kong, crashed and crashed. There were 63 passengers and 12 crew members on board. The autopsy of the black boxes later showed that the cause of the disaster was the human factor, the crew's poor knowledge of this type of equipment and gross violation of instructions.

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

Before allowing the children to take the command chair, Kudrinsky turned on the autopilot. First, the commander's daughter, 13-year-old Yana Kudrinskaya, was in the pilot's seat. She did not try to take any action to control the plane. After her, the captain's son, 15-year-old Eldar Kudrinsky, sat at the helm. The teenager held on to the steering wheel, rocking it slightly from side to side. Everything was perceived as distraction and the adults did not control the teenager. At one point, the guy swung the steering wheel harder and the autopilot, taking it for the pilot's command, turned off. In one second, the plane became obedient to the teenager, who continued to play pilots.

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

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

The situation was greatly complicated by the fact that the only person who had the physical ability to fly the plane was still in the left seat - the commander's 15-year-old son, who received and tried to carry out various, inconsistent and contradictory commands from his father, co-pilot and Makarov. According to the analysis of the soundtrack of the "black box", Eldar's attempts to rectify the situation were greatly hampered by ignorance of the pilot's jargon. As an example, the command "Hold the control wheel!"

In the meantime, the roll had already reached 90 °, and the plane began to lose altitude. In order to prevent a further decrease in the autopilot (only the roll automaton was turned off), he increased the pitch angle to such an extent that the plane began to quickly lose speed and went into a stall. The co-pilot completely turned off the machine gun and managed to get the plane out of the stall by lowering the nose. The congestion lessened, and the commander was finally able to get his son out of his chair and take his workplace. The pilots brought the plane into normal flight mode, but could not recognize their spatial position in time. Flying over a hill at low altitude, the plane caught on the edges of trees and crashed into a forest near the village of Maly Maizas, about 20 kilometers southeast of Mezhdurechensk.

Crew talks, chronology of events

Notation used in the text:

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

Before the disaster - about half an hour. The plane is flying on autopilot. In the cockpit are the aircraft commander, the co-pilot and two outsiders - the aircraft commander's daughter Yana and the passenger Makarov.

17:43:30: FAC [addressing his daughter Yana]: Come sit here now, on my chair, do you want?
17:43:31: PIC left his workplace
17: 43: 34-17: 43: 37: Yana sat down in the FAC chair
17:44:10: Yana: Dad, pick me up [Yana asked to lift her chair up]
2P: Novosibirsk, Aeroflot, 593rd we are passing your point at echelon 10 100.
17:47:06: FAC: Well, Yana, will you fly?
Yana: No!
FAC: Don't press the buttons. Don't touch this red one!
Yana: Dad, can you twist this?
FAC: Do you see Novokuznetsk on the left?
Yana: Are we flying so low?
PIC: Ten thousand one hundred meters.
Yana: That's a lot, right?
FAC: A lot ...
Yana tries to leave the chair.
FAC: Wait, take your time ...
Yana: I'm already careful ...
17:51:12: Yana left the PIC chair
The son of the commander of the Eldar aircraft appears.
17:51:47: Makarov: The counter is being removed.
17:51:55: Eldar sat down in the PIC's chair.
17:52:46: Eldar [addressing Makarov]: Are you filming?
17:52:48: Makarov: I'm filming.
Eldar: Can I twist this?
17:54:25: PIC: Yes! If you turn left, where will the plane go?
Eldar: Left!
FAC: Turn! Turn left!
17:54:35: FAC: So, look beyond the ground where you will turn. Let's go left, turn left!
Eldar: Great!
17:54:37: FAC: Come on, huh?
17:54:39: Eldar turned the steering wheel to the left by 3-4 degrees.
17:54:40: PIC: Is the plane going to the left?
17:54:41: Eldar: Coming.
17:54:42: FAC: Not visible, right?
E:< неразб>
17:54:50: E: Now it will go to the right
17:54:53: Makarov: You put him on the artificial horizon normally.
17:05:05: The plane began to roll to the right.
17:55:12: FAC: What do you, Yana, want?
Yana:< неразб>
17:55:15: FAC [addressing Yana]: Why?
Yana:< неразб>
17:55:18: FAC [addressing Yana]: In first grade, you will only sleep.
17:55:27: FAC [addressing Yana]: Don't run there, otherwise we will be kicked out of work.
17:55:28: From that time on, unnoticed by either the PIC or the co-pilot, a gradual increase in the right bank began.
17:55:36: Eldar [about the course of the plane]: Why is he turning?
17:55:38: FAC: Does it turn itself?
17:55:40: Eldar: Yes.
17:55:41: E: Why does he turn?
17:55:42: Eldar: I don't know.
17:55:45: FAC: Can't you go off course?
17:55:45: Makarov: He still turns the zone, guys. [Makarov suggested that the plane is leaving the holding area]
17:55:46: 2P: We went to the waiting area.
17:55:48: PIC: Yes?
17:55:49: 2P: Of course.
17:55:50: Makarov: Re-bya-ta! [Thus Makarov reacted to the rapid increase in vertical overload in the aircraft]
17:55:52: FAC: Here you go! Hold the wheel, hold it!
17:55:55: 2P: Speed!
17:55:56: 2P: In the opposite direction.
17:55:58: 2P: In the opposite direction.
17:55:59: 2P: Back!
17:55:59: FAC: Turn left! To the left! Right! To the left!
17:56:06: E: Right?
17:56:08: E: Can't you see, what?
17:56:11: Autopilot disconnected.
17:56:14: E: Turn right.
17:56:17: FAC: Right!
17:56:18: 2P: Yes to the left! The earth is here!
17:56:24: FAC: Eldar, come out!
17:56:26: PIC: Crawl back.
17:56:28: FAC: Crawl back, Eldar.
17:56:30: E: You see< неразб>No?
17:56:34: 2P: Ore for small!
17:56:38: PIC: Come out!
17:56:40: E: Come out, Eldar.
17:56:41: E: Come out< неразб>.
17:56:43: E: Come out.
17:56:44: E: Come out.
17:56:47: E:< неразб>.
17:56:49: E: Come out.
17:56:52: E: Come out, I say.
17:56:54: 2P: Full throttle! Full throttle! Full throttle!
17:56:55: By this time, the PIC had taken his workplace.
17:56:56: 2P: Gave gas!
17:56:57: PIC: Full throttle!
17:56:58: 2P: Dal!
17:56:59: E:< неразб>.
17:57:00: E: Full throttle.
17:57:05: E: I gave gas, gave.
17:57:08: E: What speed?
17:57:09: E:< неразб>.
17:57:13: E:< неразб>.
17:57:17: E: Okay.
17:57:23: PIC: Full gas!
17:57:25: 2P: The speed is very high!
17:57:27: E: Big, huh?
17:57:28: E: Big.
17:57:29: E: I turned it on.
17:57:30: PIC: Okay, that's it, we get out, we get out.
17:57:32: FAC: Right! Right leg!
17:57:35: PIC: High speed.
17:57:36: PIC: Take the gases away!
17:57:37: 2P: I got it right!
17:57:42: FAC: Quiet-oh-oh-nechku!
17:57:47: 2P: B ... again!
17:57:48: E: Don't turn right.
17:57:50: E: Added speed.
17:57:53: PIC: Let's get out now! Everything is fine!
17:57:55: PIC: Slowly on yourself.
17:57:56: PIC: Slowly.
17:57:57: FAC: Slowly, I say!
17:58:01: Airplane hitting the ground.

In the course of an investigation carried out jointly by Aeroflot and Airbus, changes were made to the aircraft documentation and the Aeroflot pilot training plan. And when flying on simulators, performed by Russian instructor pilot Vladimir Biryukov together with Airbus test pilots, it turned out that if both pilots could not reach the controls, the automatic control system would be able to intercept control and quickly restore a straight-line safe flight.

"(Computer reconstruction)

Fall from the echelon

Outsiders in the cockpit, unexplored features of aircraft instruments

Wreckage of A310 fuselage - fragment of the inscription "AEROFLOT"

Plane crash of flight SU593 took place on March 22, 1994 near Mezhdurechensk in the Kemerovo region. All 75 people on board were killed as a result of the fall of the A310 aircraft of Aeroflot.

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

Crew

Flight

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

Catastrophe

Before allowing the children to take the command chair, Kudrinsky turned on the autopilot. The daughter of the commander did not try to take any action to control the aircraft. After her, the captain's son, 15-year-old Eldar Kudrinsky, sat at the helm. The teenager was holding on to the steering wheel, slightly rocking it from side to side, which could not lead to disabling the autopilot by "overpowering". However, in the end, Eldar applied a force of 8-10 kg to the steering wheel for 30 seconds, which led to a partial shutdown of the autopilot, which stopped giving commands to the ailerons, which, in turn, caused an uncontrollable roll to the right side. Prior to that, this feature of the A310 autopilot was unknown to the crew. The light signaling of the mode shutdown went off, but the crew did not notice this, since the design feature of the A310 is the absence of the audible signaling of the autopilot shutdown.

Eldar was the first to notice the roll of the plane and reported this to his father. However, for several seconds both professional pilots could not understand the reason for the abnormal behavior of the aircraft. As the trackline on the screen changed to a circle, the co-pilot assumed that the aircraft had entered a “holding zone”, that is, it was describing large-diameter circles - a flight pattern used while waiting for a landing clearance.

The plane was banked to the right at a speed of about 1.5 ° per second, and soon the right bank reached 45 °, which is above the permissible limit. This caused significant positive overloads (4.8 g). When the crew members noticed that the autopilot was disabled, they tried to take their seats again.

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

The situation was greatly complicated by the fact that in the left seat there was still the only person who had the physical ability to fly the plane - the 15-year-old son of the commander, who received and tried to carry out various, inconsistent and contradictory commands from his father, the co-pilot and the third adult in the cockpit - a friend the family of the crew commander, also a pilot who flew on the same flight and came to the cockpit with the children. According to the analysis of the soundtrack of the "black box", Eldar's attempts to rectify the situation were greatly hampered by ignorance of the pilot's jargon. As an example, the command "Hold the steering wheel!" Was given, which the boy took for the command to hold the steering wheel in the extreme right position, while the pilots meant the command to level the plane.

In the meantime, the roll had already reached 90 °, and the plane began to lose altitude. In order to prevent further descent, the autopilot (only the roll automaton was turned off) increased the pitch angle to such an extent that the plane began to quickly lose speed and went into a stall. The co-pilot completely turned off the machine gun and managed to get the plane out of the stall by lowering the nose. The congestion lessened, and the commander was finally able to get his son out of his chair and take his workplace. The pilots brought the plane into normal flight mode, but could not recognize their spatial position in time. Flying over a hill at low altitude, the plane caught on the edges of trees and crashed into a forest near the village of Maly Maizas, about 20 kilometers southeast of Mezhdurechensk.

Consequences of the plane crash

In the course of an investigation carried out jointly by Aeroflot and Airbus, changes were made to the aircraft documentation and the training plan for Aeroflot pilots. In particular, now in the flight manual on the website airdisaster.ru

Airplane crash statistics are boring things: most often planes die from collisions with the ground, and the human factor leads to this. But behind a dry listing of reasons and facts, a chain of unpredictable events can be hidden. This happened 23 years ago, when one of the first Airbus A310 aircraft that appeared in our country crashed in Russia.

On the night of March 22-23, 1994, residents of Mezhdurechensk (Kemerovo Region) heard an explosion. At the same time, board number SU593 disappeared from the radars of the Novokuznetsk airport, which was making a flight from Moscow to Hong Kong. The dispatchers are at a loss: the crew did not give distress signals and did not report problems, they simply stopped responding to requests from ground services. The disappearance of the plane and the silence of the pilots - in such cases, the alarm is immediately raised and the search and rescue service is connected. So this time, an An-12 aircraft of the Air Defense Forces immediately departs from Novosibirsk to the Mezhdurechensk region, and a Mi-8 MGA helicopter is sent from Novokuznetsk. Rescuers were ahead of a local resident - an hour and a half later he found a crashed plane near the village of Maizas (10 km southeast of the city of Mezhdurechensk). This information was soon confirmed by the commander of the helicopter: from the air, you can see the burning wreckage of the airbus, scattered within a radius of 2 kilometers.

The first sensation on the way is the strongest smell of kerosene. It looks like the plane literally crashed into smithereens. The smallest fragments are scattered along the slope of the hill in a 100-meter-wide ribbon, stretching for about half a kilometer. The largest piece of the starboard side that I have seen is three by four meters. Almost everything that remains of people is heavily pressed into the snow. Hands are visible somewhere, legs somewhere, backs somewhere ... Many passengers remained sitting, tied with belts to the chair. Among the dead, rescuers managed to find two children who were flying on this flight. One of the crew members decided to take them with him on vacation, to show Hong Kong.

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

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

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

But there were other factors as well. It took specialists a year to research each of them. They had to return to the moment the ill-fated flight departed from Moscow and followed the path of the plane and the actions of the crew literally every minute.

So, on March 22, 1994 flight SU593 Moscow - Hong Kong took off from Sheremetyevo. A310, named « Glinka » , was bought « Aeroflot » in 1992, together with the first batch of foreign-made aircraft. On their basis, the largest Russian airline has created a prestigious international transportation division. A310s flew only overseas, and top-class pilots were recruited for these flights. The pilots had to have an impeccable reputation, at least 1000 flight hours and speak fluent English. All A310 pilots have been tested and trained by Airbus Industry. Moreover, out of 3000 pilots « Aeroflot ”was sent to the training of the best - only 16 people. Among them was the shift PIC (aircraft commander) of the Hong Kong flight, Yaroslav Kudrinsky.

On March 22nd, he shares the cockpit with a very experienced crew. This is the aircraft commander (PIC) Andrey Danilov, who has accounted for almost 10 thousand flight hours, more than 950 of them on the Airbus A310. And the second pilot is Igor Piskarev, whose experience is a little less. He flew 5885 hours, as a PIC he flew a Tu-134 aircraft, and moved at the helm of an Airbus A310 in October 1993. Yaroslav Kudrinsky himself became the commander of the Airbus A310 in November 1992. Prior to that, he flew Yak-40, An-12 and Il-76 aircraft. Flew over 8940 hours, 907 of them on Airbus A310. Airbus is equipped with an autopilot capable of controlling the aircraft during the flight. It would seem that a safe flight is guaranteed.

The Kudrinsky family, 80s. A still from the National Geographic documentary “A child at the helm of an airplane. Air Crash Investigation "

Among the passengers are the children of Yaroslav Kudrinsky, 13-year-old Yana and 15-year-old Eldar. Once a year Aeroflot » provided the families of the pilots with the right to a preferential flight. Captain Kudrinsky decided to take the children to Hong Kong for four days. For teenagers, this was the first trip abroad.

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

Yana is the first in the cockpit. The girl does not show much interest in flying the plane, however, on the advice of her father, she puts her hands on the steering wheel. At this time, Kudrinsky turns the autopilot control switch by 15 degrees, which allows him, without turning off the autopilot, to deflect the plane slightly to the left, which is immediately displayed by a special device - the artificial horizon. Small, up to 15 degrees, course deviations can be overlooked visually, but the artificial horizon catches all aircraft deviations and shows them on its monitor. Yana feels a spontaneous steering wheel movement and immediately realizes that her father turned the plane. The girl tells him about this and leaves the chair. Captain Kudrinsky returns the plane to its previous course.

Yana is replaced by Eldar. Unlike his sister, he takes the steering wheel with undisguised interest and immediately asks his father if he can turn it too. Kudrinsky Sr. allows and tells his son to look more closely behind the horizon. Eldar tries to turn the steering wheel to the left and notices that it gives in rather tightly, not at all like it was when Yana was sitting in the pilot's seat. The teenager leans more heavily, but cannot change course - the autopilot keeps the plane in the given direction, but Eldar does not know about it. Then the PIC applies the same technique - he again switches the autopilot heading 15 degrees to the left, using the same switch. The steering wheel in Eldar's hands smoothly turned to the left without much effort.

Like last time, Yaroslav Kudrinsky returns the autopilot heading to normal mode, thereby stopping the liner turning and the illusion of aircraft control at Eldar. It then turns on the old navigation mode, which instructs the autopilot to return the plane to Hong Kong. The wheel becomes unyielding again, but Eldar continues to turn it to the left. Then he leans slightly to the right, enjoying the role of the pilot. It takes a little more than three minutes. At some point, the teenager rocked the steering wheel more than usual, and the autopilot, mistaking it for the pilot's command, turned off. From that moment on, the huge liner begins to obey the child, but so far no one notices this. The light signaling of disabling the autopilot mode went off, but the crew did not pay attention to it. The pilots did not know about the design feature of the A310: the autopilot of this airliner turns off soundlessly. Eldar was the first to notice the trouble: he saw that the horizon line on the device rises strongly to the right. The roll increased with every second, and while the pilots were trying to figure out what was going on, he reached 45 degrees - this is more than the maximum allowable values ​​for the A310. In addition, an arc appears on the on-board computer screen instead of a line showing the aircraft's flight path. This usually happens when the liner prepares for landing and enters the waiting area above the airport.

The airbus goes in an arc at a speed of 650 km / h with a strong roll. The centrifugal force generated by the movement of the plane pushes everyone into the seats - its effect is twice the weight of a person. Frightened passengers understand the scream, bottles with mineral water and other small things fall from the carts of the stewards. FAC Danilov wakes up in the cabin, realizes that something is wrong with the liner, tries to get up and go into the cockpit, but the overloads prevent him from doing it. Kudrinsky Sr. also cannot take the pilot's seat - centrifugal force rivets him to the side panel. The co-pilot Igor Piskarev seeks to take control and manually take the liner out of a dangerous position. But even before turning off the autopilot, he pushed his seat back all the way and now cannot take a working position due to overloads that have arisen. With a jerk, he manages to reach the steering wheel and grab it with one hand. The pilot forcibly turns the steering column all the way to the left, but the aircraft does not react. It moves in a steep spiral, losing altitude. The only one holding the helm is 15-year-old Eldar. The pilots have only one thing to do: try to explain to the child what to do.

FAC: Here you go! Hold the wheel, hold it!

2nd pilot: Speed!

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

FAC: Turn left! To the left! Right! To the left!

Eldar: Right? Can't you see or what?

But this turned out to be impossible: Eldar does not understand the jargon of the pilots. For example, the command "Hold the steering wheel!" The liner is entering a deep dive, and now it is heading towards the ground at a speed of 200 meters per second. For a few seconds, the overload caused by centrifugal force gives way to almost complete weightlessness, and everything that was not fixed in the cabin and cockpit, including the passengers, turns out to be under the ceiling.

Piskarev finally manages to pull the wheel towards himself. The liner goes into the sky with a candle - the co-pilot lifted the nose of the plane too much. Overload again, this time 4 times. The plane flies up too steeply, the engine power starts to be insufficient. The liner seems to hang in the air. Yaroslav Kudrinsky takes advantage of this moment - he manages to take the pilot's place. But the plane again goes into a tailspin and starts falling from a height of 6 thousand meters. The PIC and the co-pilot continue to try to save the liner. With the help of the rudder, Kudrinsky almost succeeds in stopping the rotation of the plane. The A310 is coming out of a spin, but the pilots don't know for sure how much altitude they've lost.

FAC: Full gas!

2 pilot: The speed is very high!

FAC: Okay, that's it, get out, get out. Right! High speed. Remove the gases!

2 pilot: I got it right!

FAC: Quietly-oh-oh-nechku!

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

Airplane hitting the ground.

The bodies of 22 passengers of the airbus were never identified. By decision of the Russian authorities, they were cremated all together. Meanwhile, the investigation of the disaster continued, and the experts had to work in difficult conditions. This was a precedent, the first time that a foreign-made aircraft suffered a catastrophe while flying a Russian airline. « Aeroflot » and Airbus Industry tried to soften the blow to their reputation - the lawyers of each side were very active, and the investigators found it difficult to strike a balance.

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

Here we need to make a small digression. An autopilot is the on-board computer of an aircraft that controls its altitude, speed, and heading. The altitude and course are set by three tools: the rudder, which is responsible for turning left and right, the elevator and ailerons, which are the elements that determine the roll of the aircraft. These aerodynamic controls for the airliner appear as a moveable portion of the trailing edge of the wing. Eldar's actions led to the disconnection of the autopilot from the control of the ailerons. In fact, two and a half minutes before the tragedy, the roll rudders were in the hands of the teenager and began to respond to all his actions.

The peculiarity of this aircraft is that it does not have an audible signal for disabling the autopilot, but on Russian aircraft it does. Allowing his son to sit at the helm - although this is a violation - the commander of the liner was sure that if something happened, the crew would hear a signal and detect the disconnection of the autopilot. But on the A310, this signal is given by one small light, and the pilots may not know it.

There was one more reason why the crew did not understand what was happening: the instrument panel showed that the autopilot was on - after all, the device controlled all other flight parameters. When Eldar noticed a lurch on the artificial horizon, the plane could be leveled. But here the pilots are distracted by a false waiting zone - after all, Kudrinsky returned the plane to a given course. While they are trying to figure out what the matter is, the plane goes into a critical list. He cannot fly in this state and begins to lose altitude.

Could the plane be saved? To answer this question, the experts had to simulate a disaster on a simulator, which was located at the Airbus Industry plant in France. As the modification showed, the pilots overdid it, taking the plane out of the dive. All they had to do was let go of the steering wheel, and then the plane would not soar vertically into the sky. The A310 has a built-in self-preservation mechanism that will prevent it from toppling over even at very low speeds. It looks like, despite the training passed, the pilots did not know this. Simulator flights conducted by Vladimir Biryukov together with Airbus testers showed that if both pilots could not reach the controls, the automatic control system would independently restore a safe flight.

The fact that the plane was flown by a 15-year-old teenager was not the only reason for the crash. The conclusions made by Vladimir Biryukov demonstrated insufficient training of pilots for flights on the A310. Even people who had received special training did not know that the autopilot could be partially disabled, and did not realize that the plane was switched to manual aileron control mode. This feature of the A310 continues to allow pilots to change individual flight parameters. But modern pilots are warned about it.

After investigation changes were made to the aircraft documentation and the training plan for Aeroflot pilots. In particular , now in the operating manual for all Airbus A310s, a clause has been added spontaneous disconnection automatic aileron control when applying a force of more than 10 kg to the steering wheel for 30 seconds or more.

Crew « Glinka » He was buried at the Mitinskoye cemetery next to the firefighters who extinguished the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The grave of Yana and Eldar is located next to their father's.

• National Geographic has made a film about the investigation of the crash of Flight 593 « A child at the helm of an airliner », which featured in the 3rd season of the documentary television series « Air Crash Investigations » .
• On April 11 of the same 1994, a plane crashed in the United States. An eight-year-old girl was sitting in the pilot's seat; next - the pilot-instructor and the father.