Unexplained action by pilot stalled aircraft(274 words)

Published: 7/10/2001

Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, the head of the commission to investigate the crash of Vladivostok Avia's Tu-154 has reported the results of the first stage of the investigation into the incident. He said that the preliminary analysis of the data of the in-flight recorders, the technical state of the aircraft's systems and its engines, suggested that errors made by the co pilot caused the crash during the aircraft's approach to Irkusk. Specifically by pulling back the aircraft's controls and stalling the aircraft. According to Klebanov, the in-flight recorders have revealed that the co-pilot 40-year-old Sergei Didenko was at the controls in the final seconds of the aircraft's flight. It is however, unclear why he made such fundamental mistakes in handling the aircraft given that he had 6802 hours of flying of which 2,004 hours were on the Tu-154. The in-flight recorders revealed no sign of tension between the aircraft's captain Valentine Goncharuk and Didenko during the flight before the co pliots unexplained action. The only hint of anything untoward was that the co-pilot's reactions to the captain's instructions had not always been "adequate" during the flight according to Klebanov. After Didenko's actions it took 11 seconds for the aircraft to go into a "corkscrew" spin, according to Rudolf Teimuzarov, a member of the investigating committee that was virtually impossible to correct. Twenty-two seconds after that, the Tu-154 hit the ground near the village of Burdakovka, killing all 145 people on board. According to Klebanov further investigations will be made of how pilots are trained and prepare for flights at Vladivostok Avia and also into the last 4 days of Goncharuk and Didenko lives.

Article ID: 2636