Pulkovo Airlines Flight 612
| Pulkovo Airlines Flight 612 | |
|---|---|
 Identical Tupolev Tu-154 of the company |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Stall |
| place | Sucha Balka , Ukraine |
| date | August 22, 2006 |
| Fatalities | 170 |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Tupolev Tu-154M |
| operator | Pulkovo Airlines |
| Mark | RA-85185 |
| Departure airport |
 Anapa airport
|
| Destination airport |
St. Petersburg Airport
|
| Passengers | 160 |
| crew | 10 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
On August 22, 2006, a Tupolev Tu-154 crashed on Pulkovo Airlines flight 612 . The plane crashed about 50 kilometers north of the city of Donetsk , near the village of Sucha Balka ( Ukrainian Суха Балка ; Russian Сухая Балка / Suchaja Balka ) in Ukraine .
the accident
Pulkovo Airlines Tu-154 took off at 3:05 p.m. Moscow time (11:05 UTC ) in Anapa for a scheduled flight to Saint Petersburg and then climbed to a cruising altitude of 10,700 meters (35,100 feet ). At 3:22 p.m. the aircraft reached Ukrainian airspace and approached a thunderstorm cell ahead . The crew rose to approximately 11,600 meters (38,000 feet) to overfly the storm.
A few minutes later, the machine flew into the edge zone of the weather front and got into severe turbulence . At 3:33 p.m., the crew asked air traffic control to be allowed to climb to 11,900 meters (39,000 feet). The clearance was given immediately. During the manually performed climb, the severity of the turbulence increased. About two minutes later, the crew reached the desired altitude, but because of the unchanged bad weather situation they climbed further to approx. 12,165 meters (around 40,000 feet). At this height the machine got into a strong vertical air current . The Tu-154 then went into a steep climb and very quickly lost speed. About 20 seconds after entering the current, the machine reached an altitude of 12,880 meters (approx. 42,250 feet). At this point the angle of attack was 46 degrees and the speed dropped to zero. This led to a flameout (Flameout) to the engines and to a stall (stall) on the wings . The aircraft then went into a flat spin . The pilots failed to intercept the machine. During the crash, air traffic control received an emergency call from the crew at 3:37 p.m. Two minutes later, the Tupolev hit the ground without moving forward and exploded. All 170 occupants were killed in the accident.
Accident investigation
The accident investigators criticized the attempt to fly over the thunderstorm instead of flying around it widely. The pilots underestimated the height of the thunderstorm cell, which extended to 15,000 meters (approximately 49,200 feet). Not only was the Tupolev technically incapable of reaching the altitude required for the overflight, the investigators also felt that the crew lacked the experience of flying the aircraft manually at this altitude and under the given weather conditions. The division of labor and communication between the crew members turned out to be inadequate. After the machine had flown into the turbulent zone, both pilots concentrated on controlling the aircraft. During the climb, however, they neglected to monitor the speed, which is important in such a flight phase at high altitude, and also to trim the aircraft according to the flight maneuver . Due to the loss of speed and the high angle of attack, the machine got into a flight position that led to a stall.
The Russian MAK Interstate Aviation Committee carried out simulations and test flights during the investigation in order to investigate the flight behavior of the Tupolev Tu-154 at high angles of attack.
Similar accidents
- Air France Flight 447
- Continental Airlines Flight 3407
- Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231
- Aeroflot flight 5143
Web links
- MAK Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC), video reconstruction and cockpit recordings of the flight
- Information about the accident at the Russian investigative authority MAK (in Russian)
- Film recording of the explosion at the crash site
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Climb over storm doomed Tu-154, Flight Global, September 5, 2006
- ↑ a b c MAK Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC), video reconstruction and cockpit recordings of the flight
- ↑ a b Translation of the CVR recording on airliners.net
- ^ Accident report on Aviation Safety
- ^ Flight Global, Witnesses say Tu-154M was spinning before fatal crash
- ↑ Flight Global, Russian aviation safety agency finds 'inadequate training' led crew to stall Pulkovo Tu-154 in August Donetsk crash probe
Coordinates: 48 ° 19 ′ 59.6 " N , 37 ° 44 ′ 44.8" E