Z8 From United States, joined Jun 2001, 27 posts, RR: 0 Posted (8 years 4 months 10 hours ago) and read 767 times:
It's just now was made available from http://www.ntv.ru/russia/13Jul2001/tu154crash_kp.html
with some comments from an expert (a flying director of Vnukovo Airlines). Unfortunately, only in Russian. Anyone cares to translate?
In short:
17:07:45,5 The crash sequence starts with an alarm sound because of the excessive angle of attack. A couple of seconds earlier the copilot, who was flying the plane at the time, pitched the nose up in order to gain altitude and to stay at the assigned 850m level. The pitch was too high for the current speed and the plane lost stability.
17:07:51 -- 17:07:58 The crew desperately tries to level the plane.
17:08:02 The crew realizes that instead of leveling the plane they should apply more engine power. The plane is already stalled and is unrecoverable.
17:08:11,5 Last recorded words from the crew. In rough translation: "That's all. F*ck!"
17:08:16 Ground proximity alarm sounds. Lasts for 6 seconds.
17:08:22 Impact with engines rated at the full take-off power. It's assumed that for the last 11 seconds a g-load was so high (the plane went into a "horizontal spin") that the pilots lost consciousness.
It's horrible. Just 37 seconds for 145 souls to perish. I'm speechless. Let them all rest in peace.
Agrodemm From Greece, joined Apr 2000, 399 posts, RR: 0 Reply 1, posted (8 years 4 months 5 hours ago) and read 662 times:
Tragic indeed.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the ill-fated a/c was on the third approach for landing (it aborded landing twice?) It seems to me that the stress level of pilots makes them prone to miscalculations. I think we had several cases of crashes after certain aborted landings...
LY744 From Canada, joined Feb 2001, 5536 posts, RR: 15 Reply 3, posted (8 years 3 months 4 weeks 1 day 21 hours ago) and read 630 times:
The full transcript has just been published (only Russian): http://www.kp.ru/articles/issue22590/paper7071.html
Somewhat of a rough translation/summary by me:
According to the transcript, it was the flight's first and only landing attempt. There were no previous landing attempts by this flight earlier that night.
The FO was the pilot in control during the approach and landing. The pilots were told to descend to 850 metres by the tower, but the a/c was losing some altitude, so the FO tried to pull the a/c up, which probably caused the TU-154M to stall. When the crew realised that the a/c was losing too much speed, they tried to apply full engine power but it was too late.
when the FO was trying to pull the a/c up to 850 metres the navigator was telling him to be more "gentle" in his manouvers, which suggests that the FO's actions may not have been absolutely appropriate.
Z8 From United States, joined Jun 2001, 27 posts, RR: 0 Reply 4, posted (8 years 3 months 4 weeks 1 day 20 hours ago) and read 609 times:
The landing wasn't aborted twice and the a/c was on its first approach. The initial reports were misleading (or possible badly translated). In fact, the plane was making its third (and final) TURN for the landing. It is the usual procedure there. The landscape around Irkutsk airport is very complicated and dictates equally complicated approaches. It was a decisive factor in several accidents before.
LY744 From Canada, joined Feb 2001, 5536 posts, RR: 15 Reply 5, posted (8 years 3 months 4 weeks 1 day 19 hours ago) and read 583 times:
A correction to my previous post: The a/c lost too much speed while the crew was descending to the given altitude of 850 m (2800ft), as a result of that, the a/c stalled when making the final (4th) turn before landing, the FO couldn't recover the a/c from the stall, the crew then tried to apply full engine power but it was too late.
Cfalk From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 6, posted (8 years 3 months 4 weeks 1 day 18 hours ago) and read 569 times:
Sounds like deep stall all right. From nearly 3,000 feet, a normal stall should be recoverable. A deep stall in a T-tail aircraft is another thing altogether.
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