Why they didn’t land the plane in Omsk, but flew to Novosibirsk
The commission to investigate the landing of the Airbus A320 on a wheat field near Novosibirsk continues to work. “Black boxes” – automatic recorders of on-board information – were confiscated from the scene of the emergency. As two sources told MK, the recordings of internal conversations between crew members preserved in black boxes before the emergency landing allow us to look at the emergency and its causes in a completely different way.
Many called the emergency landing in the field a real miracle. There were more than 160 people on board, including passengers and crew, and none of them were seriously injured. The tragic situation with the Sukhoi Superjet at Sheremetyevo is still remembered, when after an emergency landing at the airfield, the plane caught fire and 41 people, including women and children, died.
Therefore, the first reaction to the emergency in the Novosibirsk region was this: the crew are heroes, they saved people. However, soon authoritative aviation experts, including experienced pilots, unanimously began to criticize the crew of the Airbus A320 flying from Sochi to Omsk. Having analyzed the recording of the pilots’ conversations with air traffic control services that appeared on the Internet, they came to the conclusion that the crew, after one of the three hydraulic systems failed, did not have to make an emergency landing at all.
According to specialists, the plane was completely safe. I could easily land in Omsk, where the weather conditions were acceptable. But instead I flew to Novosibirsk. Well, then the crew completely unreasonably fell into a panic due to the fact that the fuel on board was supposedly running out. This forced them to make an emergency landing on a collective farm field with wheat.
If you believe the transcript of internal conversations between the aircraft commander and the co-pilot, which came into the possession of MK (let us make a reservation once again – there is no official confirmation of its authenticity), the initial conclusions of aviation experts are confirmed.
For ethical reasons, MK does not publishes this transcript in full. The text is replete with profanity. The main thing that follows from the text is that there was enough fuel in abundance.
“Listen, is there enough kerosene?” – the second pilot asks the commander of the aircraft on the transcript given to us, as indicated there, when he decided not to land in Omsk. “There’s still a ton of kerosene left,” comes the answer.
The co-pilot, listed in the transcript, recalled that the plane flies with the landing gear down, and in this case, fuel consumption increases. To this, the commander replied that there was nothing wrong: “You see (obviously, he points to some kind of sensor) – the remainder says 800 kilograms, especially landing off course.”
From the above negotiations, the logic of decision-making becomes clear do not land the plane in Omsk, but fly to Novosibirsk. The commander says: “We’ll go to Novosibirsk (Novosibirsk).” The second pilot remarks to this: “It’s possible to land here (in Omsk), I figured everything will work out.”
The aircraft commander, according to the transcript, remarks to the second pilot: “We’ll be stuck for a day while the crew (apparently, this means a repair team.) They will send it, and the base is in Novosib, ours will agree, they will repair it in three hours, we will fly home.”
However, the plane never reached Novosib. Landed on the field.
