Surface, Air: chronicle of plane crash

14 September, 02:12 a.m.

Boeing 737-500, the flight 821, making the route Moscow-Perm, left Sheremetevo at 1:12 a.m. Moscow time. There were 82 passengers and 6 crew members on board; captain, second pilot and four hostesses. At 3:10 a.m. of Moscow time the aircraft disappeared from radars screens being 12 km away from the Perm’s airport named Bolshoe Savino. The dwellers of the two Perm’s districts – Sverdlovsky and Industrialny – woke up at the explosion.   

05:40 a.m.

Alexandra Zakharova, employee at UVD in Leninsky district of Perm:

All the police officers were alarmed at 6 a.m. Half an hour after that we were standing in cordon near the crash site. The morning was cold and it was spitting, but the crowd was increasing. The operative-investigative committee, formed at the territorial prosecutor’s office, got our specialists involved in shooting the site. However, all the shots were intended only for investigative actions and will not be passed to the press. All the records made by the correspondents of a local TV station were taken away and they will be added to the criminal case materials. All day the site was besieged by the Perm’s dwellers arriving from all the parts of the city. I explained to everyone that there was nothing to see as the plane broke to small pieces. The biggest fragment that I saw was about 3 m long. The rest was dispersed on a territory with the area of several kilometers.        

06:30 a.m.

Vladimir Sypachev, photographer:

At some minutes past 5 I received a call from Itar-TASS. I’ve been cooperating for long with this information agency. I got informed about the crashed plane and made for the crash site immediately. That was really terrible. Burning pieces of metal, and many people standing in silence under the rain… I managed to shoot a few unique photos: the destroyed railing, the concentrated faces of the rescuers, the faces of the relatives, mad with grief, who managed to break through the cordon. They could not believe their dears were dead. They were tried to calm down and were sent to the krai House of Folk Arts. I shan’t forget this day and those people for long.     

08:00 a.m.

Nikolai Onuchin, justice adviser, senior expert-criminalist:

Operative investigative group invited the experts to define the order of the works. Unfortunately, there are practically no remains. There is nothing to be recognized by relatives. The rescuers collect the biological material at the crash site so that the genetic expertise may be done. The fragments of people are very small (taking the correspondent by a finger and measuring the terminal phalanx he said “such size are the fragments lying there!”). The fragments are dispersed over a large territory. It has been raining all day, which hinders working by the rescue group.    

11:00 a.m.

Relatives and journalists are not allowed to the site. It is known already that there are Perm dwellers, 23 Moscow people and foreigners: 9 Azerbaijan citizens, 5 Ukrainians, a French, a Swiss, a Latvian, an American, a German, a Turkish and an Italian citizen killed.      

1:30 p.m.

Tatiana Maslenkina, psychologist of the non-departmental guard service at Industrialny district: 

Psychologists from Perm, Moscow, St Petersburg have been working all day. They give emotional support to people in despair. The first day is the shocking one; many people do not cry. They have not yet realized and have not accepted the pain of this bereavement. I was called in the morning by my colleagues who live near the place and who witnessed the crash. They told me they had woken up at the noise made by the falling plane and saw the explosion and the flames higher than tall houses. I realized at once that help would be needed not by those on the plane, but by those waiting for them on the surface.     

3:00 p.m.

Maxim Oborin, employee at the press service at the krai administration:

Tomorrow at ten the blood sampling will be done with the relatives of those killed. This is needed for DNA expertise. People will be brought in groups, so that not to make a crowd. Further investigative and notary actions will also be taken. We will be discussing the organization of funeral procedure, and the relatives will meet representatives of the insurance companies. We are solving organizational problems: accommodations, tickets and many other things. Journalists want to see the relatives, but people refuse doing it, as they have other problems now.     

It’s only in the evening that the cameraman of Rossia TV station was allowed by FSB officers to make a short item in the Center for Help, and that was only a picture.

6 p.m.

With the dark coming, the examination of the scene was stopped and the repairing crews of railroaders were allowed at the crash site.

Meantime

On Sunday 14 September 172 passengers refused taking a flight on Boeing 737 at the airport of Nuremberg. After a plane by Air Berlin Company had to come back to the airport twice after failing attempts, the passengers, scared with the Perm tragedy, got united and wrote a petition where they required that a plane of another model was given to them.  

According to Air Berlin spokesperson, Alexandra Muller, the passengers were in extreme degree of panic. Two of them refused taking flight even on another aircraft that was brought after 15 hours. 

Expertise 

Vasily Luzin, senior research worker at the Aviation Research Institute:  

It makes one perplexed, the fact that the minister of transport Igor Levitin is appointed to head the investigative commission. He is an experienced man, but he is a railroader. That means, he cannot assess the expert opinion competently. What was said by pilots and by traffic controllers will be clear after decoding of the magnet tape on the flight recorder. But anyway, what is said now on television differs much from reality. Pilots don’t like talking too much, especially with flight controllers, who sit in cozy chairs and give instructions. This is why it is only figures and directions that sound on the air.   

Let us assume that approaching the destination the pilots found some fault in the system. There are about ten systems on a plane: electronic, hydraulic, the control system etc.  

What do pilots do in such cases?

They try to comprehend what they are dealing with.

They try to define how dangerous the situation is and whether it is necessary the emergency landing.  

They try to reach the stopway (which extends for 500 m before the landing strip). 

The eyewitnesses affirm there was an explosion in the air. What could have it been? It’s only three things that may explode with a plane in the air: engine, fuel tank or the tank with hydromixture, which is made on the basis of aircraft oil. And something unexpected in the baggage might be the last option.  

I take it that it is the hypothesis of technical problem that should be considered first, instead of shifting the blame on pilots, like it was about Irkutsk catastrophe of TU-154. I was indignant then with the fact that the criminal case was immediately started on the count of “Violation of the flight safety rules or of preparation for the flight”. However, the commission had not yet proved that such violations had taken place. Such cases should be started only after professional investigation done by experienced pilots and navigators…    

I suppose that the investigation is going to be long, complicated and biased. 

Hypotheses

Testimony by the pilot who flew the Boeing just two days before the crash 

The initial hypothesis of a terrorist act has not been proved. The Investigative Committee at the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office did not find traces of explosive on the plane’s fragments. The weather conditions in Perm were normal and the fuel was not exhausted even for half of the whole volume. 

So two hypotheses are remaining: technical failure and, as usual, human factor. According to Irina Sarkisyan, the spokesperson of the press service of the Ural Transport Investigative Department, the investigative committee would recognize the pilots of the crashed Boeing to be victims only after their fault possibility is excluded.    

The experts mention the engine failure among other possible reasons. That might have caused combustion and then an explosion of the plane in the air. However, according to the head of Rosaeronavigazia, Alexander Neradko, the combustion and explosion were caused with collision with the surface.

This Boeing 737 left Moscow for Perm having two fault conditions. Vladislav Boldyrev, the technical maintenance specialist at Aeroflot-Nord, reported to the journalists that the Collision Avoidance system was not working and there were problems with the autothrottle. This information was confirmed at an aviation forum in the Net by one of pilots who had piloted the plane two days before the crash. Nonetheless, Lev Koshlyakov, the deputy general director of Aeroflot informed that the plane was recognized to be in good condition. It was given technical maintenance on 7 September.         

The aircraft was manufactured in 1991. 17 years is no big age for a plane. All the previous time it has been used in China. One of the hypotheses by experts is that the plane was worn out and was sold after that and then got to Russia. 

”Such hypothesis appear with people who know nothing of the Chinese aviation” got indignant Mikhail Krupenko, the deputy General Director of Air China, where the Boeing in question was used for 5 years. “The aviation standards there are much higher than in Russia. China buys only new planes and watches the condition of every component on them. And after a certain period of using it sells them to poor countries like those of Africa. Or sells it to Russia”. 

Explanatory note

Valery Okulov, general director of Aeroflot:

A few hours after the crash the General Director of Aeroflot Valery Okulov announced that the Company breaks up with its daughter company, Aeroflot-Nord: from 15 September it will not be able to use Aeroflot brand in its name. “In terms of reputation, we have paid too dear for using our flag” said Mr. Okulov. He added that the Company had made its own separate investigation but did not report about the conclusions made. 

The public took that statement in a definite way and got to think that Aeroflot investigation had revealed some unknown circumstances obviously proving the fault by Aeroflot-Nord about the crash. Or that the head Company knew about safety rules violations before but turned a blind eye on it.   

”Aeroflot’s decision has no relation to the conclusions out of the investigation taken” said Lev Koshlyakov, deputy general director of Aeroflot, to a Novaya Gazeta correspondent. “This is a commercial decision, taken for the sake of Aeroflot’s reputation. Yes, Aeroflot-Nord has caused great reputation harm and we have too, as we are associated with it. What we are doing now is the question of minimization of that harm”. 

”Associated” is not the exactly correct term: Aeroflot possesses 51% of the stock of Aeroflot-Nord. And the both companies carried passengers jointly. This is why the statement by Mr. Okulov was felt by visitors in the forums and blogs as betrayal of the business partner and the wish to escape responsibility. Now the carrier will hold the shareholders’ meeting that is to take a decision of re-registration of the company under a new name. To a question of how possible is it that the board of directors would accept such a decision by Okulov, Lev Koshlyakov answered “they have no other choice”.    

At the same time, the carrier has begun the audit of its other daughter company, Aeroflot-Don. According to Koshlyakov “we have taken a systemic decision of taking our brand away. Initially, Aeroflot took the wrong decision giving its name to the daughter companies. Now we are just amending the situation”.  

It is not known yet whether this hastily made disunion helps the reputation of the national carrier. On Tuesday the Prosecutor General’s office began simultaneous checking of Aeroflot and its daughters. 

The ICAO is also beginning its own checking of the safety of flights in Russia. 

So far the ICAO safety rating by Aeroflot has been high (Aeroflot and its daughters have not had crashes since 1993). One may suppose that Aeroflot also is trying to save its international rating from revisiting. 

Pilots cabin

Irek Bikbov, the flight operations officer at Bolshoe Savino airdrome: 

Rodion Medvedev, the pilot of the Boeing, behaved rather oddly. As soon as the plane took the landing heading, odd things began to happen: the aircraft started to go up. The traffic controller informed the crew the plane was climbing, but the pilot affirmed it was descending. And the gauge indications were obvious: the plane was going up higher and higher. I gave it the course for the third turn so that it could have time to descend again and take the landing heading at the altitude of 600 m. The crew accepted my instruction but did not follow it. I asked “Is everything all right up there?” The pilot answered in the affirmative. I ordered that he make a repeated landing approach.      

On that morning the visibility was not very good, but the Boeing had all chances to land without any problems. Generally, both pilots were considered at the Aeroflot-Nord to be professionals of the first class. This is why the specialists give an opinion that some technical failure might have occurred and the devices gave the wrong information.     

Novaya Gazeta information

Boeing-737 VP-BKO was manufactured in 1991. The first flight took place on 20 August 1992. The flying time is 44,521 hours. It was registered in Bermuda Islands on 7 April 2008. 

First six months it was used by a small Chinese regional airline Xiamen, and after March 1993 it was used by China Southwest Airlines, that was closed down a few years ago. In 2003 it was bought by the Chinese national carrier Air China.   

The Moscow office of Air China informed Novaya Gazeta that no information is left about using of this Boeing in China. That means there have been no accidents or failures.  

In March 2008 the aircraft was sold, and on 29 May the Aeroflot-Nord took for leasing up to 2013 from Pinewatch Limited, registered in Ireland.