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In the An-26 military transport plane of the Ukrainian Air Force, which crashed near Kharkov, a series of failures could occur, from which the pilots could not defend themselves. This is the opinion of Major General Vladimir Popov, former head of the Federal Directorate for Aerospace Search and Rescue under the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the Honorary Military Pilot of Russia.
The disaster occurred at 8:50 p.m. local time. The plane crashed when landing near the city of Chuguev. She did not fly 2 km to the military airfield. After hitting the ground, it caught fire. This happened near the highway. A video of a burning plane, filmed from a driving car, hit the internet.
According to preliminary information, in the accident of the plane, on board which, in addition to seven crew members, there were cadets from the Kharkov school, 22 people died.
The An-26 turboprop aircraft was developed in the Soviet era at the Antonov Design Bureau in Kiev. It can carry 40 people on board.
The crew entered to land in the dark, that is, in the absence of visibility.
“It is necessary to clarify what the meteorological conditions were: low clouds, precipitation, darkness … Military airfields, as a rule, are less adapted to land at night than civilians,” General Popov said. – This applies to both lighting and radio equipment. Military airfields are military because they are designed for a period of threat. Therefore, they must go unnoticed, or even in general disguise, so that they can be confused with the motorways.
I have great doubts that in Ukraine, military airfields can guarantee a plane landing at night, especially if there is some kind of malfunction on board.
The question is also how the radio-technical means of landing and communications, navigation and the glide path system worked at the aerodrome near Chuguevo. There may be a power outage there. And while we switched to the operation of the standby diesel stations, while we were turning something on and off … That is, incorrect data could be transmitted on board from the ground, since the aircraft navigation system depends on the ground drive stations and other equipment.
I know from my own experience that if a power outage occurred at the airport and the day did not fly, then all backup systems could operate according to a simplified scheme.
It appears that the cadets flew from somewhere from the operating airfield to the main one. We return to the Chuguev regiment. Apparently, they worked elsewhere on the field airfield. Let’s say that during the day we calculate the conditions for the landing of the An-26 on a dirt track. And in the afternoon, at the end of the day, the interrogation took place and they returned to their barracks for a weekend to rest.
It is possible that the equipment breakdown situation is mutual: both on board and at the airport.
According to one version, the An-26 crew tried to land the plane on level ground near the road. But, obviously, the task proved impossible.
According to the general, the An-26 is, of course, old. But the design bureau is located in Kiev, so it had to monitor the technical condition of the car.
“It is a simple and reliable machine. They also fly with us. And even more so in Ukraine, your design office is close at hand. But every plane has the right to refuse. And in these conditions it is not easy even for an instructor pilot to fit into the control circuit. In addition, there is information that there, together with the instructor, the cadet also trained in flight according to the plan with the crew.
Earlier it was reported a series of accidents of Su-27 fighters of the Ukrainian Air Force. During one of them, in addition to the Ukrainian colonel, an American soldier was killed, who was brought on board to “ride”.
