“Flaps are very critical. "Commander, we are falling!" Why did the crew talk about flaps in the last seconds? What will happen if the plane does not release the flaps

The flaps of the aircraft could have caused the crash of the Tu-154 on December 25 near Sochi. This version was put forward by experts after decrypting the data of one of the black boxes.

Airplane flaps: why, photo, why are they needed during takeoff and landing

Flaps could have been the cause of the Tu-154 crash in Sochi. According to a preliminary analysis of the data obtained from one of the black boxes, the development emergency situation on board could start with flaps not retracted for some reason.

Trying to compensate for the resulting diving moment, the pilots aggravated the situation to a critical one, excessively lifting the nose of the aircraft.

According to Life, citing a source close to the investigation, the experts were able to decipher the recording from the speech flight recorder without any problems. According to him, the conversation is interrupted by the fact that one of the pilots exclaims: "Flaps, with ... ah!" Then a cry sounds: "Commander, we are falling!".

- Speed ​​300 ... (Inaudible)
- (inaudible)
- Took the racks, commander.
- (inaudible)
- Wow, e-mine!
(A sharp beep sounds)
- Flaps, s ... ah, what the fuck nya!
- Altimeter!
- We ... (inaudible)
(The signal sounds about a dangerous approach to the ground)
- (inaudible)
- Commander, we are falling!

What are the flaps of the plane for, photo

Flaps are called wing high-lift devices. When retracted, they are a continuation of the wing surface. In the released state, they move away from it with the formation of cracks. Flaps are needed to improve the wing bearing capacity during climb or takeoff / landing. They are also needed when flying at low altitudes.

When the flaps are extended, the curvature of the profile increases, which allows aircraft to fly without stalling at low speeds. The Tu-154M uses double-slotted flaps, and the Tu-154B uses three-slotted flaps. Flaps can be extended both automatically and by the command of the pilots from the cockpit.

According to preliminary data, the flaps on board worked mismatchedly, as a result of their failure to exit, the lift was lost, the speed was not sufficient to climb, and the plane crashed.

Official data on the decryption of the recordings has not yet been published.

Flaps photo

Recall that the Russian Defense Ministry's Tu-154 on December 25 at 01:38 Moscow time took off from the Chkalovsky airfield in the Moscow region and was heading to the Khmeimim airbase in Syrian Latakia.

In Sochi, the aircraft stopped for refueling, which was not known in advance. At 05:27 Moscow time, the plane disappeared from radar a few minutes after taking off from Adler airport. Later it became known that the liner fell in the Black Sea near the Sochi coast.

There were 92 people on board, all of whom died.

Among the victims of the disaster are 64 employees of the Alexandrov Song and Dance Ensemble and its leader Valery Khalilov, three film crews, the doctor Elizaveta Glinka, who was bringing medicines to Syria, as well as the director of the culture department of the Ministry of Defense Anton Gubankov and crew members.

According to the definition, a flap is a downward deflecting or extending and simultaneously deflecting rear part of the wing. Since there is nothing to add to this, let's jump straight to the discussion of using flaps in flight.

Cadets flying in Russia regularly have a question: "When and to what angle should the flaps be released?" Instructor recommendations on this topic are often contradictory, as are the "standard procedures" of major airlines. Attempts to find the truth in the flight manual of a small aircraft usually do not succeed, especially if it is a foreign-made aircraft.

I will try to clarify something.

In the western flight school there is a uniform approach to how and when the flaps are extended. It looks like this: the flaps are extended only when flying from a short runway or soft ground, as well as when performing forced landing or a precautionary landing. Normal takeoff and landing are performed WITHOUT FLAP. This is an established practice and the flight exam is based on this.

I would like to emphasize that in the West, for small aircraft, normal take-off and landing (Exercise 16 and 18) is considered to be operation from such a strip, which in Russia is located only at large air hubs and military airfields. For example, while studying at an aeroclub in Canada, I flew from 7900 and 6200 feet international airport the city of Regina. I am sure that the runways of many Russian flying clubs and training centers are currently far from these characteristics. Therefore, most flights in Russia can be classified as flights from short runways or from soft ground, where flaps are fully justified and perfectly correlates with the standard requirements of the Western school.

For large airliners (due to their significant mass and speed), all takeoffs and landings are "short" , and they always use mechanization. But since it is customary for large airlines to independently develop their own crew technologies, standard procedures, etc., we should not unconditionally accept them as a guide to action.

The universal approach is that the condition for the release of the flaps is the length of the strip or the condition of its coverage. And if we fly from a short or unpaved runway, then the flaps must be released. The question remains "when to do this?"

However, if you fly a low-wing aircraft, especially such as the Yak-18T with a flap UNDER the fuselage and a high stabilizer, this effect will not work in full. Subjectively, it may seem to you that the flap also gives a strong nose-up, requiring correction by the control wheel "away from you", but in fact, the plane simply "swells" due to a sharp increase in lift when the flap is quickly released from 0 degrees to 50 (!) In one reception. Within a few seconds after that, he calmly flies with a rather low bowed nose, which casts doubt on the creation of a "strong pitch up moment".

Even less nose-up torque is expected on T-tail low-wing aircraft such as the Diamond Katana DA-20. On them, the stabilizer and the elevator are significantly higher than the zone of influence of the flow slope.

Thus, while for high-wing aircraft and some biplanes it can be confidently asserted that the flap extension always causes a pitch-up moment, then for low-wing aircraft and, especially, low-wing aircraft with "T-tail" this will not be entirely true. On such aircraft, flaps may well lead to a dive moment.

IMPORTANT: Beware of extending flaps in turns, do it strictly in level flight. The danger is that if one of them breaks down or freezes, then the second, acting as an aileron, creates additional lift on only one wing. The resulting roll can add up with a roll in the U-turn. , and then the situation will become critical very quickly. You may never understand what happened by rolling upside down in close proximity to the ground. In level flight, the roll arising from the asymmetric extension of the flaps is easier to notice, and if this happens, then you need to transfer their selector to retraction as soon as possible. If one of them is stuck in an intermediate position, you need to set the second in the same position and no longer use the flaps until the end of the flight.

Of course, since the Yak-18T is equipped with only one flap, its asymmetrical release is technically impossible. But I would recommend adhering to a single stereotype of behavior regardless of the type of aircraft. Moreover, on this plane, the flap has only two positions "retracted" and "released", and when released, it deflects immediately at a large angle. This requires vigorous helm counter-action to prevent climb. In this case, you have to navigate by the position of the hood-horizon or by the projection of the runway in the windshield, which is much more difficult to do in a turn than in horizontal flight.

It is also IMPORTANT that the extension and retraction of the flaps, if possible, should be done in several stages. If the release in one step is not something especially dangerous, but only leads to an unwanted climb (which is especially noticeable on Yaks), then a quick cleanup leads to a significant drawdown of the aircraft. If this happens near the ground (for example, during a go-around), the consequences can be catastrophic.

Of course, the flaps extended at 30 or 40 degrees during the go-around must be promptly retracted to 20 in order to reduce the aerodynamic drag. As mentioned above, in this case, the loss of lift will be negligible. But you still need to do this without panic. Having given take-off mode, you should make sure that the plane has begun to pick up speed in level flight. Only when the speed reaches at least Vx, you can retract the flaps in one motion up to 20 degrees and start climbing. During the climb, the flaps are retracted in two stages: first up to 10 degrees, and then completely.

When performing conveyors on the Yak-18T from a short strip, a cadet may develop a motor reflex to remove the shield after landing (this is how it was with me). This is due to the need to always quickly remove the flap on runs and is practiced to automatism with multiple repetitions. However, in the event that, for some reason, the instructor gives the cadet a command to go to the go-around with low height, this reflex can do a disservice. When the flap is removed, this type of aircraft sinks tens of meters (up to 50!), Which is fraught with a collision with the ground. My instructor twice caught my hand on the cleaning tap in these situations. Try to avoid my mistakes and take a short pause before jerking the valves and flap selectors in the air. Take your time, exhale and think again if you are doing everything right. If you have already set the takeoff mode, then the plane will fly and even steadily gain altitude with the flap extended, so you have enough time to think. In this particular case, you must first remove the chassis and only then, after gaining at least 50 meters, remove the shield.

It seems that in the investigation of the causes of the Tu-154 disaster in the Black Sea, some clarity comes. Analysis of flight recorders and leaks from sources close to the investigation indicate a problem that has very often led to tragedies in the air: asynchronous flaps. It remains to understand who is to blame for what happened - the technician or the crew.

By Tuesday evening, a preliminary analysis of the records of the black box of the Tu-154 crashed on Sunday was completed. The version of the error in the piloting technique is confirmed, according to a knowledgeable source. According to him, this follows from the analysis of the data of the recorder.

“It was necessary to first remove them by half after taking off, and only after gaining speed - to remove them completely. And the "pravak" Filippov headlessly removed them in one fell swoop. And knocked down the plane "

At the same time, earlier the media reported that the pilots were recording problems with the flaps in the last seconds. In particular, one of the pilots exclaims: "Flaps, bitch!"

Earlier, test pilot Magomed Tolboev had already said that problems with the flaps could have caused the crash. According to him, in this case, "the plane instantly turns around its axis." “Neither the commander, no one will have time to say a word, they are thrown there like a herring in a barrel,” said Magomed Tolboyev.

Vice-President of the Federation of Aviation Amateurs, Honored Test Pilot of the USSR Viktor Zabolotsky clarified in a commentary to Life that in case of problems with the flaps, the plane can become uncontrollable. “One wing has a large lift, while the other has a small one, naturally, the plane will turn over,” he said.

Source of "Interfax" in operational headquarters Emergency Situations also reported that the flaps of the Tu-154 worked inconsistently. The inconsistent work of the flaps could, in turn, be caused either by technical reasons, or by an error of the crew member responsible for their work.

However, until the records of the remaining black boxes have been deciphered, experts do not know "where the crew's hands were" - what the crew commander and co-pilot did at the fatal moment.

As the experts explain, right in front of the co-pilot is the flap release and retraction lever. The commander gives the order: "Retract the flaps" - and the co-pilot retracts. How exactly the crew acted will be clear later, but some conclusions can already be drawn.

Honored Pilot of the USSR, former Deputy Minister civil aviation The USSR, President of the Civil Aviation Partner Foundation, who himself flew the Tu-154, Oleg Smirnov, in a conversation with the VZGLYAD newspaper, emphasized that his first assumptions about the causes of the plane crash were also associated with flaps. The fact is that the plane disappeared exactly at the point of the flight where the flaps are being retracted.

“The flaps extend from under the wing, increase its area and simultaneously change the curvature of the flow. This is done to increase lift and decrease speed. The flaps are extended both before takeoff and during landing in order to make it at a lower speed, "Smirnov explained.

Smirnov emphasized that the Tu-154 is equipped with automatic equipment, which stops the movement of the flaps in the event of an asynchronous operation. Usually, the crew is not to blame for the asynchronous retraction of the flaps; the technician is solely responsible for this.

“But if this audio recording appeared, it means that the automation did not work. This is all happening so quickly that it leaves no hope of carving out a split second to press the transmitter button and report what happened. The commander of the ship gives the command to release. The flight engineer has one lever. He moves it, and the flaps go to the right and left. If the extension or retraction of the flaps occurs out of sync, the automatics should stop them, ”he said, adding that the decoding of the parametric black box, on which the signals of operation of mechanisms and possible failures are recorded, will help to clarify the causes of the crash.

“It happens that the equipment fails, the flaps can be retracted out of sync,” another source of the VZGLYAD newspaper, a former high-ranking military pilot, echoes Smirnov. - Then we must immediately stop cleaning them! Otherwise, the plane will simply fall in one direction. I myself have not encountered this, but others have. Those who managed to stop cleaning are alive, those who did not have time - they were buried. " The interlocutor did not even rule out that the Tu-154 crew had forgotten to release the flaps before takeoff.

The interlocutor cites as an example the death of the Tu-95RTs aircraft on January 25, 1984, the crew of which was led by a first-class military pilot, Major Vymyatin.

“I took off from the Olenya airfield on the Kola Peninsula. After 1 minute 55 seconds, during the climb at a speed of 346 km / h and an altitude of 350 m, the crew prematurely retracted the flaps at low speed, says the source. - There it was necessary to first remove them by half after taking off, and only after gaining speed - to remove them completely. And the co-pilot Filippov removed them in one fell swoop. The navigator told the commander to turn on the course. The commander put the car into a roll and knocked down the plane. All died. 92 tons of kerosene burned out for two days in a snowdrift. Something similar could be here. "

In the event of a pilot error, the question naturally arises about the qualifications of the crew.

Earlier it was reported that the commander of the crashed Tu-154, first class pilot Roman Volkov had more than three thousand hours of flight practice. In this regard, it was concluded that Volkov was an experienced pilot. However, Oleg Smirnov is skeptical about the number of three thousand flight hours, calling it "cadet". Smirnov's flight was 15 thousand hours, including on the Tu-154. There are pilots with 20,000th air raids. Smirnov also recalled that each type of aircraft has its own characteristics. In addition, it is not clear from the flight number exactly how many flights the pilot made on this type of aircraft and in what capacity - the aircraft commander, co-pilot, etc.

“If all these thousands of hours the commander flew on this plane - this is one thing. And if on other types, then something else. The plane is the plane. It all depends on its weight, size, placement of engines. Tu-154 is original in terms of aerodynamics. It has all three engines, each weighing more than a ton, in the tail, which means rear alignment. Aerodynamic forces work differently here. Each plane has its own characteristics, you study them when retraining, and you always have to keep them in mind. In particular, when you retract the flaps, you have to be very careful, ”Oleg Smirnov explained.

Aviation specialist, pilot from Sheremetyevo, who asked not to be named:

Every time we step on the same rake. The reason for this is general lack of professionalism.

Take, for example, the lost crew: the commander is retrained from navigators, the co-pilot is from flight engineers. Moreover, the commander flies for the first year. That is, his first "minimum": 80 per 1000 (he is allowed an approach with the maximum cloud height - 80 m, visibility - 1000 m - Auth.). Experienced pilots, with the automation that the Boeing has, calmly sit down even in overcast clouds. Moreover, in Kazan the weather was good, and the commander simply had to sit down.

If the commander has any problems, he always has an assistant on the right. But there was a man who himself did not have strong manual piloting skills, a pilot of an even lower level - a former flight engineer. So what could have happened to these "professionals" when the commander reported to the dispatcher about the non-landing position of the aircraft?

The non-landing position is the extreme deviation from the course and glide path that prevents the crew from successfully completing the landing. If the crew goes beyond these maximum deviations, he is obliged to go around, which they tried to do. And further, as my experience suggests, the situation could develop as follows: in order to go around, they gave the takeoff mode, while forgetting to remove the flaps. And in the landing position, they were completely released, and they urgently needed to be removed to the takeoff position. If this is not done, the plane immediately goes to high angles of attack and stalls.

I immediately had a question: how could the airline's management form such a flight crew - from an inexperienced former navigator and an incompetent flight engineer? I opened their website, after which the question disappeared by itself. I read that the head of this airline is Aksan Rimovich Giniyatullin, born in 1977, who graduated from the Tashkent Agricultural Institute, becoming an engineer for irrigation and mechanization. (By the way, the information about the general director of the Tatarstan company immediately after the tragedy in Kazan mysteriously disappeared from the airline's website— Auth.).

Before being appointed to the post of general director of the Tatarstan company, Aksan Giniyatullin worked everywhere exclusively as an adviser. He studied for one and a half to two years as an accountant in the United States, after which he worked in Canada, where he was engaged in the promotion of foreign technology to Russia. Then he returned to his homeland, his penultimate place of work - the airline "Bars", where for a year he was engaged in the purchase of foreign aircraft for the company.

That is why I dare say that this person hardly understands what an airplane is and how to organize flight safety in an airline. But if you think that Aksan Giniyatullin is an exception, then you are mistaken. Look through the list of executives of other airlines, you will see a similar picture everywhere.

Vladimir Gerasimov - an expert on plane crashes, a civil aviation pilot, a candidate of technical sciences:

It is clear that now we can only make assumptions, and yet ... What is an approach? Before entering the glide path - and on the classic glide path it is 8 km 600 meters from the end of the runway (runway) - the crew releases the wing mechanization, which includes the flaps and slats, and rearranges the stabilizer. This is done to reduce the landing speed.

Before passing the distant drive radio station - and this is 4 km to the runway - he must report readiness for landing, after which he receives permission for it and the remaining 4 km flies in silence, making a landing.

But if the pilot reported to the dispatcher that he was going to go around because of the non-landing configuration of the aircraft, then it is important to know: at what moment did he do it? And, accordingly, when I received permission for this departure. This is the first thing.

And secondly, many understand by non-landing configuration only the position of the aircraft relative to the glide path. Roughly speaking, I missed the runway and left for a second run. And to be precise, the non-landing configuration of the aircraft is also its landing gear position, the position of the slats, flaps. For example, their under-release in the landing configuration, or what is much worse, is not a synchronous release of mechanization. When the flaps are extended on one wing and not on the other. In this case, a heeling moment appears towards the unreleased mechanization.

What exactly this crew could have is still unclear. According to the rules, the pilot had to explain to the dispatcher the reason for his go-around. But he didn’t, so there’s a lot to guess: let's say, his stabilizer, or horizontal tail feathers flew off, and the plane immediately “nodded”.

We are now generally talking about the final stage. But why did he go to the second round for the first time? How long has he been spinning near the airfield? The reason is not one, but several. Perhaps something prevented the commander from completing the approach, but he himself missed something somewhere.

Let's say one flap flew off and began to roll. And he missed the situation at the beginning, although he immediately had to remove the operating mode of the engines, since they turn the plane over if the released flap is blown more than necessary. There is still too much to be understood. Although it is very likely that some technical malfunction entailed inadequate actions of the crew.

According to experts, there have been cases when, instead of the "flaps-15" mode, the switch was accidentally put in the wrong position.

As I wrote earlier, the preliminary results of decoding the flight recorders of the Tu-154 plane crashed near Sochi by the Russian Ministry of Defense showed that the development of an emergency situation on board an airliner. Moskovsky Komsomolets journalists asked experts to comment on what happened on board the airliner.

According to one expert, if an inconsistent flap extension occurs, the jammed flap remains in the position it was stuck in.

"That is intkbbee the system cuts off all electric motors that are used to extend and retract mechanization (flaps). At the same time, a serviceable flap, this tracking system releases, or retracts, exactly to the same angle at which the jammed flap remained. In connection with this, some have a question: is it possible that the crashed "Tu" was so old that it was not equipped with such a system? No. I flew this plane and I can say that only the very first Tu-154 did not have it. Later, planes with the designation Tu-154A went, then "A-1", "A-2", then - Tu-154 B, etc. Latest modification with the designation "M". And they all had this system. So why is one of the crew members in their last words scolds the flaps? I think he just realized at that moment that he had made a mistake, "- said the specialist.

The expert notes that in this aircraft, the retraction and flap extension switch is located above the windshield of the cockpit. If the ship's commander is piloting, then the co-pilot releases the mechanization, and if the co-pilot is piloting, then the commander controls the switch.

“The switch has such slots where the switch is locked in three different positions: flaps-15, flaps-28 and flaps-45. And when the commander is taxiing on takeoff, he gives the command: flaps-28” . The co-pilot puts them in takeoff position. The plane (this, however, depends on the flight weight) takes off from the ground at a speed of 270-290 km per hour. Then, when he needs to cross an altitude of 120 m and go higher, he accelerates to a speed not less than 330 km per hour, and then the command is given to clean up the mechanization. That is, from the "flaps-28" position, their switch is set to the "flaps-15" position. air - when instead of "flaps-15" the switch was accidentally, by mistake, put in position "0." This, of course, is an assumption, but just imagine: from "28" the flaps are immediately retracted to "0." "clean wing", that is, when the mechanization has already been completely removed, is not ensured. Amoleth reaches a critical angle of attack, at which a stall into a tailspin is possible. If something like that happened, then it can definitely be regarded as a mistake by the crew, "he stressed.

Another expert described the possible situation on board in a slightly different way. wrecked Tu-154.

"If the flaps began to retract out of sync, then the point is not that there is not enough lift. It is enough. It's just that the difference in lift forces on the left and right wing leads to the intensive development of the roll angle. If you do not immediately react to this, then nothing can be done further, since the speed increases and accordingly the difference in lifting forces on the half-wings grows and even the rudder travel is no longer enough to compensate.That is why mechanisms are installed on all aircraft that limit the harvesting of mechanization if there is a mismatch. According to the transcript of the negotiations, which appeared in the media, everything was probably even worse there: the pilots removed the flaps instead of the landing gear ... And they were killed. In this case, there are no options at all ... ", - he said.