God Bless Their Souls
We had 12 TU154-B2, the only catastrofic accident was in a training flight. They took-off with an engine to idle and at 200ft the instructor moved to idle the second engine. The mistake was completed when, ending the conversation with APP CONTROL, moved the flap lever to UP position. This meant beginning the leading edge to withdraw and they fall out of the sky.
The second accident happened in Africa when the captain despite the F/O & MEC calls for GO AROUND continued descending until water contact. ILS/LOC was wrongfully showing "On LOC" all around the circle due to ground equipment mafunction. The plane was split in three but only one passenger died by hart arrest.
In 20 years of flight no other incident major or minor was registered. Technically, sensitive to hydraulic systems, I feel myself entitled to say that this air-plane is extremely solid, reliable and provided that the crew is performing the right manoeuvres all should be OK. TU54M is even better.
In 1986 Russians halted LOT aircrafts due to suspicions that the limits were exceeded in operation as the initial cause of IL62 engine failure and catastrophe near WAW. That crew was flying from near Gdansk to WAW with engine failure/explosion and hydraulic limitations passing over at least 2 air-force strips. Would you do otherwise instead? Me myself I would risk a crash landing on a 2500m strip with a crippled plane instead of flying near an hour with smoke and when in the rear, the fire broke-out, the PAX were moving in front bringing her out of control at only 4NM from RWY33 THR. In simulator trainings a Russian trainer said “with fire you have 4 SAFE minutes, after that anything could happen”. It was a tremendous tragedy anyway.
Now back to the point, fact is that descending below DH without POSITIVE CONTACT is out of my flying culture.
It’s true that eastern leaders may be bossy but, even if this is the last mission nobody, no way, in no circumstances should determine anybody to challenge the worst nightmare of all.
It’s easy from a stool before the fireplace to judge but, some things should be asked.
1. The crew should be the best in the country. They should be very well trained. The TYPE IS NO LONGER IN USE AT THE NATIONAL FLAGLINE. Where did they trained themselves in order to be sharply fit for this unusual duty? Did they made the usual pre-mission flight to that unusual destination? (NOBODY was to reach old Hong Kong A/P without a simulator session at least).
2. The language of flight control was... ???
3. The QNH vs. QFE. In USSR they used largely QFE.
In the stress and specific conditions any little thing is important. They say that an error ignored becomes a mistake, ignored becomes a dangerous instance very near the cause of a tragedy.
Now the pure and simple question stands:
What could determine a good pilot to take-off when the destination is closed or forecasted to be closed at the time of arrival?
WHY DESCEND BELOW DH?
In official flights, the responsible of the presidential staff maintaining liaison with crew asked straightly:
CAN YOU DO IT? If we said YES it meant that the mission was to be completed IN FULL SAFETY. And one of the condition was to take ENOUGH FUEL. Question:
The fuel quantity was a factor?
The soviet controllers I know were very bossy if they said NO it meant no! What if at the last try they didn’t lighted RWY lights, to determine crew to go to another field?