Barely controllable Tu-154 - another UA232

[maxho]

Takeoff:
YouTube - 1-

Attempt to return:
YouTube - 2-

Final:
YouTube - 3-

[flaphandlemover]

Well done by he crew.....:ok::D:D

Hope there will be a report on what happend to this flight....

I wanna open this threat with my guess:....

CG too far aft and out of the envelope.... Just a guess....

[lelebebbel]

holy crap.

[GarageYears]

Holy crap indeed!!!

How that didn't end in a ball of fire I can hardly believe.... :D

That deserves more than a few shots of vodka. Wow.

[pattern_is_full]

CG too far aft and out of the envelope.... Just a guess...

I dunno - the pitch seems to be the one thing that is pretty stable through most of the "flight" (or is that "fright?"). Rotation seems normal and smooth.

A textbook Dutch Roll - so a failed yaw damper? [nah, - never mind - Tu-154's anhedral supposedly eliminates need for YD)

Dutch roll - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_roll)

Anyway - stupendous work by the crew to work around the instability and bring 'er home!
____

Edit: Chkalovsky Airport outside Moscow? (trying to translate the cyrillic)

[tatin]

Looks like a complete loss of flight controls, or a combination of hydraulic loss and stuck flight controls. My guess is they steer the aircraft with engine power.
No wheelbrakes upon landing.

BTW Dutch roll is only at high altitude.

[aviatorhi]

Seems a little suspicious to me. If anything I would suspect a YD failure (not sure about how the 154 is equipped). If this had happened on my trusty 727 we'd simply disconnect the thing and land normally.

[ATC Watcher]

Some control locks still on ? In any case big applause to both the crew and Mr Tupolev for building good strong airplanes . Pity we miss flare and touch down on the video, I bet it did not touch down on the 2 mains at the same time .

[SKS777FLYER]

Astounding oscillations on that "downwind" and besides the roll and extreme yaw, it looked to me like some large pitch down cycles as well. Can't help but wonder if the tails of certain composite material jetliners would have stayed on.

[Old Hairy]

What ever the problems reguarding the cause.Well done for getting it down in one piece

[CaptainProp]

Russian ab initio training? :E Those damn CTC guys set up new shop.... :}

Good job getting the bird on gnd!

[Desert Dawg]

I wonder if any of our Russian friends on Pprune can find out if that was a scheduled PAX flight...?

It was certainly heart stopping to watch..! Well done to the crew for getting it back on terra firma safely:ok:

[Pilot Pacifier]

Rumour control has it that it was a test flight after being in storage for 10 years. That is and I stress, just a rumour...

[wozzo]

Comment from Youtube poster is: Loss of roll and pitch control.

[J.O.]

Rumour control has it that it was a test flight after being in storage for 10 years. That is and I stress, just a rumour...

Given that the airport looks like a bit of a parking lot, this sounds credible to me. In any case, the fact that they got it back on the ground and were able to taxi in is remarkable. Well done, lads! :ok:

[Richard Taylor]

2nd YT clip does seem to show a line up of stored 154s. If true, wonder why this one was being brought back into use.

Well done indeed to the crew - not a pleasant experience from the footage!

[Cacophonix]

A nasty short period, undamped yaw roll situation.

Will be interesting to see what caused it. Kudos to the crew.

[liider]

It was indeed a first test flight after being in storage for 10 years. It's a military airfield and an aircraft belonging to Russian Army, so you won't ever know why was it necessary to get this plane back in air after 10-year break...

[compton3bravo]

Not to be too flippant - but I hope they were all wearing brown corduroy trousers! But to be serious for a minute great airmanship to get the thing down in one piece.

[Walder]

If you look at video no. 2, I see apparently no aileron movement, but a lot of rudder movement. If ailerons are locked, you can use rudder as a roll control, but it is only a secondary result.

Pitch cannot change so quickly unless you have some kind of pitch control (Trim only??). I flew the 727, and change of thrust gave no initially change of pitch. That was also a secondary result of speed change.

I have tried similar problem - simulated in a little piper - we froze the stick, and had only trim and rudder. It was possible to steer the aircraft, but the handling was exact like we see on this video.

Maybe we should test a frozen stick in the simulator and see how it will turn out?

[Walder]

Well – If I realize at control problem right after rotation or even during rotation, I might forget the gear, especially if I still have at positive rate.

[fantom]

BTW Dutch roll is only at high altitude.

Not so tatin. The Hawker Hunter would quite happily dutch roll on finals (big wing/small fin). In airliners generally though, you would be correct - it has been designed out.

[Mahatma Kote]

In the first video you can see some form of explosion after lift-off. It's a slightly orange cloud that appears while the aircraft is on full thrust and a few hundred feet off the ground.

[sycamore]

Maximum respect to the crew for getting it down in one piece..I think the message to all pilots who have a control malfunction is ,never , never give up..

[rmac]

Not only a case of brown underpants, but they must have filled a few barf bags at the same time....amazing

[Andy Brandt]

Very good job. the last moments on final before it disappears below the tree line look like its curtains.

[flaphandlemover]

At around 33 sec into the video:

if you only look at the right outer wing you can see aileron movements.....

Very bizzare...

[Walder]

I observed the same smoke, but when I played the video again, I observed the same cloud in FRONT of the aircraft = It was a little cloud.

[despegue]

it is a regular SOP for initial test flights, be it a first flight of a new type or after a prolonged storage to leave the gear down. You want to keep things as simple as possible in case of a series of failures...

We used to practice to steer our cessna's with only power and using the doors during initial training (long ago...):ok:

Did the frozen yoke thing in the sim. Great excercise to see the effect of your rudder and to get better rudder-feeling.

At Sabena, one simulator item on Airbus was to land the plane on the runway using rudder/thrust/trim if I remember correctly.(haven't flown the Airbus for 8 years now) it was "fun"...:eek: but had to be successful...

[Sqwak7700]

undamped yaw roll situation.

Well, yeah, they had no pitch and roll control according to the videos, so it looks like the guy was stepping on the rudder or using diff-thrust to swing the nose and make the plane pitch down.

[lomapaseo]

Was there an aircraft malfunction confirmed ?

[Machinbird]

russian pilots do have balls!

Well, actually, it looks like they were just trying to keep them. Bet they were covered in sweat when that was over. They definitely earned their pay. BIG attaboy to the crew.:ok:
The nose seems to be describing a figure 8 lying on its side. I didn't hear thrust variations on the overflight portion of the video.
Maybe the pitch damper gyro got connected to the yaw damper and vice-versa.
Had to be a maintenance foul up. If a test flight, they would have minimum crew. Do they use a FE on the TU-154? Might have been flopping around too bad to ambulate over to an offending piece of equipment and disable it.

[DJ77]

At 0:27 in the first video there is a red flash below the tail. I don't think it's a strobe light.

Congrats to the crew.

[BOAC]

Vaguely reminiscent of the Boeing that got airborne in the UK with the ailerons reversed after maintenance. The 'wing-rocking' began well before the small 'flash'.

[pattern_is_full]

Actually, if you look at the same videographer's #4 video (not part of this series - a normally operating 154) there is a red strobe under the tail that flashes every so often.

The physical light unit can be seen sticking down aft of the flaps in this still image: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Tupolev_Tu-154.jpg

[liider]

Some moments before flare and touchdown:

http://s003.radikal.ru/i204/1105/a3/eca06097dc8b.jpg

[pattern_is_full]

Left spoiler and aileron up. Wrong angle to be sure of rudder deflection (except it isn't hardover to the right). Is that a partial slat deployment ahead of the R main gear?

Would those parts stay out in the slipstream with a total loss of hydraulic pressure? Would the spoilers be part of manual control reversion in a hydraulic failure?

In a still photo, we can't tell if they are stuck that way or if the pilots were using them intentionally to correct that right bank.

No flaps, but that could be by choice. If the controls are wonky, who wants to deal with a potential split-flap deployment on top of everything else.

[Ptkay]

For me, comparing with other Tu-154 images,
there is a full left ruder deflection.

[aviatorhi]

While I'm still skeptical as to what actually happened. It almost seems as if the rudder wasn't receiving any control inputs/wasn't attached to its servos whatsoever, the photo before touchdown and video confirm they had ailerons/spoilerons working, and had some form of pitch control. Seems a rudder that is "fluttering" would give this sort of result. A friend had a similar thing happen to him in a Cessna 207 with the elevator trim tab. As he described it: "it shook the **** outta me".

[Walder]

I feel the incident is a little strange:bored:
I did not see any firetrucks at any picture og video:confused:
It seems like braking were normal!

:confused::confused::confused:

[MADTASS]

"Rumor is aileron feedback problem - system treated any aileron motion as external force, and attempted to "correct". Rudder was the only fully functional control."

Above was taken from Airliners Net, I"m not a Pilot so i don"t know how Credible that would be, i"ll leave that up to you Guys.

[Loose rivets]

"Rumor is aileron feedback problem - system treated any aileron motion as external force, and attempted to "correct". Rudder was the only fully functional control."


That makes a lot of sense. When he was downwind, there were several wild yawing movements. It could well have been attempts to lift the port wing.

[Vicenco]

Hello , I found some pictures here :

Посадка Ту-154 RA85563 в Чкаловске (http://photo.qip.ru/users/neustaf.fotoplenka/151028556/168446695/#mainImageLink)

foto by "Neustaf"

http://neustaf.fotoplenka.users.photofile.ru/photo/neustaf.fotoplenka/151028556/xlarge/168446695.jpg

[NG1]

I cannot spot any emergency vehicles, neither in the videos, nor in the pics. I don't want to say that the whole thing is a fake, I think it as real, just wondering...

[pattern_is_full]

Why would anyone expect to see emergency vehicles in the pictures and videos we've seen so far?

It's a 10,000 ft (3,000 meter) runway and without flaps the plane was likely doing about 150 kts on touchdown. Where would you expect the fire trucks to be, and what are the odds they'd be visible in any given picture?

And parked (large) aircraft hide a lot of the ground in most of the images.

[Stone Cold II]

I think it's a fake. Just by the way it is filmed. Camera points to the ground just as it goes below the trees and come up again after landing. Looking closely the footage doesn't look quite right to me and as others point out, where are the emergency vehicles?

Plus footage of this miracle landing would have made the news and yet it isn't mentioned.

[aviatorhi]

That last photo has got me believing this being an actual event instead of some staged scenario. In which case my hats off to these guys.

I'm wondering if there is a way of diconnecting the hydraulic power to the flight controls in the 154. If I had something like this going on in a 727 I'd give extremley serious consideration to diconnecting the flight controls on the overhead panel and flying in manual reversion, significantly more control there than here if the artificial feel computer is going nuts.

While it's true that it has that sense of a "viral video" (not seeing the moment of touchdown) when the camera points at the ground, given the vantage point I wouldn't have expected to see anything. The photos taken from a better point of view clearly show the touchdown though.

[AN2 Driver]

Fake? Guys, please get a grip.

this happened on a military airstrip with an airplane used and owned by the military/government. There is plenty of photographic evidence as much as the 3 movies, they all correspond.

Nobody knows what happened yet, it is questionable whether the Russian air force will ever publish a report about it, they are certainly not required to bring this into the open. However, Tupolev Design Bureau as well as MAK will want to know, as this type, at least the "M" Variant of it, is still used widely in passenger service.

It remains to be seen whether what did happen occurred after lift off or even before, such as a maintenance issue. The aircraft had been stored for 10 years, run up last week and was supposed to do a first test flight when the incident occurred. Obviously, it will need another one once they set right what went wrong here.

Rumours from Russia speak of a massive hydraulic problem. This makes sense to an extent, however there does not appear to have been a full loss of flight controls. At least part of them worked, as it is visible from the pictures. The landing gear remained extended, possibly planned but not necessarily so. The aircraft took off with flaps in normal take off position, but apparently landed without flaps extended. On the picture posted (no 11 in the sequence), one spoiler is seen extended as well as a slat. Especcially the lone extended slat is far from normal. So a massive hydraulic/flight control malfunction is certainly very likely.


In more than one way, it is testament to how massive the Tupolev is built that it survived this. It is testament to the skill of the flight crew that they managed to get this aircraft on the ground and how they did. I do hope that the fact that this videos and pics have gone around the world will prompt the Russian Air Force to tell what really happened. I think they owe it to the crew to do so, so we may fully appreciate the extent of the emergency and how it was dealt with.

[Bond'll Do]

Taking the attached vid's with a few shots of frozen Stolichnaya! (rather than bait!) lol :eek:

Anyone see slats deployed? MAC (weight & balance issue?). I do remember a GF Tristar many moons ago in the sandpit with a forklift left in rear cargo hold which shifted on t/o. It made it back.......

Who knows and not about to guess! :confused:

[Fris B. Fairing]

Will the Tu-154 fly empty - or does it require ballast?

[aviatorhi]

Fake? Guys, please get a grip.

You have to admit, the first set of videos posted had this thing looking like a "viral" video attempt, particularly the fact that the most 'dramatic' moment (the landing) is conveniently obscured in the video. The addition of photographs from the landing removes any doubts about this having occured in a genuine way (rather than staged).

As to my previous statement/question... anyone know whether or not he flight controls on the 154 can simply be disconnected from the hydraulic system and allow the plane to fly in manual reversion. Being up front I'd prefer manual over wildly swinging powered controls.

[Cacophonix]

That landing photograph certainly doesn't look staged or fake. Some of the yawing moments caught on the video implied some big lateral forces on the tail fin as well. Why would any sane operator take such risks for a viral fake?

If this was a military "test flight" then are we likely to ever know the cause of incident?

[SWBKCB]

If this is RA-85563 as quoted (doesn't look like it in the pictures at reply 41, but it isn't clear), I don't think that it has been in storage for ten years.

I saw it less than three years ago being worked on and (although it doesn't look like it), it was in a line of active aircraft. This is the same line up which can clearly seen in the video's - the video's seem to be taken from the forward steps of one of the 154's? Also, from memory I don't think the touch down point would be visible from here so don't think there is anything suspicious about this.

RA-85563-UUMU-25-07-2008 | Flickr - Photo Sharing! (http://www.flickr.com/photos/swbkcb/3941507077/)

[aviatorhi]

Why would any sane operator take such risks for a viral fake

1veF3Go1bkQ

A well known "viral" video where no operator or military took any risk, just some CGI trickery.

Like I said though, with photos of the landing I'm sure it was genuine.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<Why would anyone expect to see emergency vehicles in the pictures and videos we've seen so far?>>

One imagines that a maximum emergency status would be in force with safety vehicles positioned at strategic points along the runway.

[blind pew]

Declared a mayday on the VC 10 with a similar roll but not pitch problem.
We did a 180 and started to descend into thicker air hoping it might help the problem.
In the end I took the autopilot out as we believed the aircraft would break up as the movement was causing ceiling panels to fall down.
I had been taught to always leave it in as it could fly the aircraft better than you Sunny Jim.
Motioned stopped.
Runaway yaw damper but what mystified us is that there was no feed back through the rudder pedals (as we had with the Trident).
The motion was very different to a trident damper runaway.
Trident easier to diagnose as we had damper deflection indicators.
Wasn't the same motion as dutch roll although fairly similar.
Video looks like a rudder deflection problem followed by the secondary effects of rudder -as in roll and thirdly pitch.
Shows how structurally strong SOME aircraft air......

[SincoTC]

That certainly looks very hairy and congratulations to the crew for their airmanship!:D:D

There used to be an Italian AF Captain (solo from the Frecce Tricolori I think), who performed a similar, madly gyrating circuit, finals and flare at really extreme pitch and yaw angles, which were only slightly moderated after landing on one mainwheel and then hopping to the other one, nearly scraping the tip-tanks in the process, but I doubt anyone would be daft enough to try that in a large airliner, even for a viral video!!

The only concern I have about these videos!

Plus footage of this miracle landing would have made the news and yet it isn't mentioned

It certainly would!! However, it seems that despite apparently having quite a bit of time (when one considers the fly-through and long distance shots), the person taking the video didn't seem to make any attempt to get to a more suitable viewpoint to record what must have seemed like the inevitable fireball!! Given the likely "value" of that video on the World market, why didn't he get to the other side of the trees??

That point, along with why did he initially film what must have been a routine take-off, as it was hardly an ideal viewpoint for that kind of shot and surely this must be a regular occurrence to the point of boredom at such a location!

Maybe they heard something unusual in the T/O run that caught their attention and possibly, if they were military personnel under strict control about where they can and cant go, he could only do the best from where he was!

[Blacksheep]

what mystified us is that there was no feed back through the rudder pedals Easy. Series Yaw Damper. What mystifies me is how that was never explained during aircrew systems training. Especially when the crew includes a Flight Engineer.

[snowfalcon2]

A series of pictures of the landing, taking from the opposite side of the airport than the video. Click on the pic to advance.

Link (http://photo.qip.ru/users/neustaf.fotoplenka/151028556/168446564/#mainImageLink)

Looks like a huge one-wing-down bounce there, on top of the other challenges. Tough iron, tough job to save the day. :ok:

[SincoTC]

(Not directed at you SinoTC)

Thanks for the edit stuckgear, much appreciated :ok:

[ulxima]

There used to be an Italian AF Captain (solo from the Frecce Tricolori I think)



Are you referring to this, SinoTC?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiZ9821-Vr4

Ciao,
Ulxima

[blind pew]

Blacksheep - series yaw damper.
found that out the hard way.
What surprised me was that the engineer who had double the experience of the two of us up front didn't know either.
In the 70s there was a lot of ignorance in the aviation industry.
In my view due to the lack of ability in those in management and training.
Unfortunately it hasn't quite disappeared as we know about the 747 crew who didn't understand the basics of the cross feed system.
Another lack of system understanding was when the fokker 100 was introduced in the 90s. We were told that it could not approach the stall because of the all talking full time auto throttle system.
Second stall warning during low level final approach turns taught us not to believe what the brochure stated.

[SincoTC]

Are you referring to this

Thanks ulxima :ok:, yes, It was along these lines! However, I don't know if this is an early video before he had worked up his routine, or more likely I think, a later one, after the leaden hand of "Elfin Safety" had descended, but it was very tame compared with the performances I remenber seeing! These were during the competitions held between the various national display teams at the Greenham Common International Air Tatoo during the early seventies, where national pride pushed the displays even further than usual. His cavorting was very spirited and continued throughout a full circuit and landing, right through the flare and onto a one wheel landing and then rocking across to the other wheel using the full width of the runway during the roll-out!

Apologies for the thread drift :)

[aerolearner]

His cavorting was very spirited and continued throughout a full circuit and landing, right through the flare and onto a one wheel landing and then rocking across to the other wheel using the full width of the runway during the roll-out!
Most probably you saw Capt. Riccardo Peracchi. In the '60s, he was the official display pilot of the ItAF flight test unit on the Aermacchi MB.326 jet trainer. See page 35:
http://www.aermacchi.it/files/amw6ingl.pdf

The "Volo folle" (Crazy flight) figure shown in the video is part of the current Frecce Tricolori display programme.

Apologies for the thread drift, again :}

[deSitter]

Man oh man, this goes down in the annals of airmanship - comparable to the guys for DHL in Iraq who landed an A300F without any hydraulics.

My butt is puckered just looking at stills.

-drl

[lomapaseo]

I'll vote for an airmanship medal only after somebody confirms a failure mechanism in the aircraft.

[glhcarl]

Simply amazing! CG problem?

However, why is there no clouds in video #1, lots of clouds in #2 and scattered clouds in #3?

[nojwod]

glhcarl: "Simply amazing! CG problem?

However, why is there no clouds in video #1, lots of clouds in #2 and scattered clouds in #3?"

Did you even bother to read the posts? Did you even bother to watch the videos? The CG problem answer is in the posts, the videos display no inconsistency in cloud type or cover.

[sAx_R54]

Boy oh boy oh boy........! It would have been mercifully brief for me, as coronary infarction would have occasioned long before the MLG finally reconnected with the TDZ.

sAx

[vovachan]

@lomapaseo

the word is the plane's "stability and control augmentation system" was acting up.

The Tu5 is actually a computer controlled plane, of sorts

[Feathers McGraw]

I remember some time in the late 80s or early 90s that there was another "crazy flight" display that existed, I'm pretty sure that it was done in an AlphaJet and may possibly have been a Belgian Air Force pilot or just maybe French.

I can't remember the location I saw it, but I suspect it was either Mildenhall, Alconbury or maybe the year that the IAT was held at Cottesmore although that is less likely as it was some years later, I think '98 or '99.

[deSitter]

I think what saved these guys was the Sen. Larry Craig "Wide-Stance" (TM) undercarriage on the TU-154. Surely a 727 would have caught a wing in the dirt. Still amazed at this piloting!!

-drl

[pattern_is_full]

Having 12 main-gear tires instead of just 4 no doubt helped absorb the extra forces if the plane was trying to roll at touchdown. The -154 was designed for occasional gravel field use. :eek:

[liider]

A video of the landing from the other side of the runway:

YouTube -

[Locked door]

Interesting how one of the spectators shouts 'yes' in English!

Anyone able to translate the rest?

[ap08]

They aren't saying anything interesting (what did you expect though?)

Something like this:

Look how they...
Go on guys, go on, go on
What the...
He has to go around again somehow, he is fully loaded
No he has to land, no matter how, but he will break up of course
He will strike his wing
Go on guys, guess (a moment when to land)
Go on
That's all, he guessed! (a moment when to land)
<Censored>
Yes!!
Well done!
That's all
I'm shaking in my shoes
Did you film it? Yes
They are heroes, they must be awarded
<Censored>
Those planes can't be flown anymore, get it?

[Cacophonix]

Those planes can't be flown anymore, get it?

A very pertinent comment.

One wonders why they were trying to get this aircraft back into the air?

[Stone Cold II]

I still say fake. This footage would have been on the news and in the press. It would have been a great achievement but nothing is mentioned. Fact is there are some talented people out there. Seen plenty of photo shop pictures done and they look amazing.

Not in the news so I don't believe it. This would be up there with the Hudson river in terms of skill.

[ZeBedie]

If you do the approach fron hell, say Funchal on a bad day, then watch the next aircraft land, it looks far less exciting from on the ground than it does on the flightdeck. So those gyrations were just too extreme to believe and I do have my doubts.

[pattern_is_full]

I get more fun out of the uber-skeptics - soon they'll be demanding to see the long form of the birth certifi- ooops, I mean, log book.

"I don't believe the video - it hides the landing."

OK - here's the landing.

"No, no, that's a still-picture series - I want to see video"

Ok - here's video of the landing.

"No, no, I want...."

Giggle-heads. ;)

[OntimeexceptACARS]

At 4:02 on this link.

YouTube - Franklin Airshow Piper Comedy Flight

Not making light of what these guys achieved, my trousers would have been permanently withdrawn from use.

[deSitter]

Zebede, well, that's a good point, easily answered this way - the crew had almost no control, that the plane was basically flying itself in some kind of Dutch roll variant, and they were just hanging on and hoping to time the landing just right between the regular oscillations seen very clearly on the turn to final, so as not to snag a wing.

-drl

[bizjets101]

Just for the record, it did appear on Russian news service RT.

Pilot struggling to control airplane (http://rt.com/news/video-tu-154-dangerous-flight/) May 1/2011

[vovachan]

One wonders why they were trying to get this aircraft back into the air?

apparently the idea was to fix it just enough to fly it to the factory for an overhaul. It didn't quite work

As to why the mainstream media didn't pick it up - there was no crash and no dead bodies. There were no passengers on board to tell reporters we thought we are all gonna die!!! Most tv viewers would look at this vid and say what's the big deal?

[FlyFire]

Interesting how one of the spectators shouts 'yes' in English!

It was not english "yes", it was russian victorious exclamation "yest!" which means that result of some nervous thing finally became surprisingly great.

[AN2 Driver]

"Fakers" (in reference to "birthers") just think a bit before you post garbage.

It was in the Russian media, more than it would have been a few years back when something like this was simply hushed up. The West press had it in there too, it was even in some TV news here with the footage shown on this and other forums.

And anyhow, why do we have to turn to the press now to verify an incident? We can see it in front of our own eyes, at least 3 differnet movies and photo positions by different people. Do you really think those Russians made a hell of an effort to produce something like that as a fake?



In any event, I hear that Tupolev Design Bureau does not think it is a fake and are on it with quite some effort to clear up what happened. The rumour mill there is talking of rudder problems, unclear yet whether caused by electric or hydraulic failure of sorts.

Best regards

AN2 Driver

[ECAM_Actions]

Those who think it is fake need to get a grip. Watch the fly over closely in Video #2. The rudder is clearly making full left/right deflections. You wouldn't do that for fun in a large jet.

It does show the Russian jets are strong - how many Airbus or Boeing aircraft would survive constant full left/right rudder deflections before the tail decided it had enough? I seem to recall the A300 that lost its tail suffered a mere LEFT/RIGHT/LEFT deflection before it failed.

ECAM Actions.

[ap08]

In any event, I hear that Tupolev Design Bureau does not think it is a fake and are on it with quite some effort to clear up what happened.

Not only that, but also the military prosecutor office has become interested in the incident and started an examination of the airbase, as reported to the Interfax news agency. I don't think they would take such action simply because of some fake videos.

[AN2 Driver]

I wonder what if any damage the aircraft suffered in this landing? What is the smoke, doesn't look as if it's only rubber burn?

Clearly this incident will have sparked the interest of every single TU 154 operator out of pure self preservation. Sticking the head in the sand and say 'bah, it was a maintenance problem, doesn't concern us' would be pretty stupid. Happened to them and that means it can happen again.

Having said that, I still think the TU154 has proven its design over and over again in such situations. The sheer sturdiness of design has probably saved a lot of lifes during the last 40 odd years, the last ones so far being the ones of this crew.

I'd love to hear what they have to say. I hope they get to tell their tale. It's most probably one every one of us can learn from.



Best regards
AN2 Driver

[daikilo]

Brilliant, guys. Looks like excellent, well managed, robust aircraft. Pity display wasn't at MAK.

[Pugilistic Animus]

really amazing...:eek::\

I'm surprised they landed with all of those unstable flight path oscillations ....simply astounding...just like UA232...except of course one major difference:(

[FlyingStarts]

@ Locked door (http://www.pprune.org/members/189440-locked-door), Post 83 (http://www.pprune.org/6427454-post83.html)

"Interesting how one of the spectators shouts 'yes' in English!"

The exclamation (mine too) after watching all that flying on the ragged edge of departing- and then seeing that safe landing for the first time in the footage above was just the same, in empathy and admiration for that crew:

"Eсть!!"

It's not English, but deeply Russian. Eсть (yest) means "Roger", "Yes Sir" and, in situations like this- it also may be translated as "F*** Yeah!!!"

Literally, it means "It is" or "So it is", but as an interjection there are many nuances of context- emotional, military, naval, and aeronautical. Coincidentally, there is a homonym "eсть" (meaning to eat).


"Anyone able to translate the rest?"

As the 154 was short final, I understood wonder/despair at how she could be landed with such yawing. "давай" (davai) means "come on!" I'm a very rusty non-native Russian speaker, and I'm sure that better translations than I can give are available from fluent Russian linguists here.

Great footage, excellent flying with obviously severe uncommanded flight control deflections (reversed persistent yaw damper or coordination logic?) and a fascinating/harrowing spectacle. Truly an amazing display of airmanship. IMO/BTW any good airplane should be able to be yawed this assertively without the vertical stabilizer failing (Airbus should take note).

Never give up, and always fly the airplane until full stop.

Positive flight control checks before any test flight might be another moral of this story.

[sagered]

Not in the news so I don't believe it. This would be up there with the Hudson river in terms of skill.

It is now:

BBC News - Inquiry after Russian plane falters during test (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13286479)

:ugh:

[Capn Bloggs]

Updated compilation video of those posted by maxho and Liider and stills by Neustaf:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOM9NnkDD2g

[Jamie-Southend]

Well i`m sorry but it must be true, it`s made "Aunty`s" front page :)

BBC News - Home (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/)
BBC News - Inquiry after Russian plane falters during test (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13286479)

[ZQA297/30]

Those guys were remarkable Most pilots from the early jets know how to kill dutch roll, but this was an order of magnitude higher.
Many years ago in an L-1011 simulator, at the end of a re-qual session with 15 minutes to spare, I asked the instructor if he would mind if we took a couple of minutes to see what happened if you ignored Lockheeds prohibition of flap use above FL200.
It was almost identical to the TUs antics. Gyratory oscillations that could not be damped by the usual dutch roll kill procedure. We quickly retracted flaps and resolved that this was indeed a very good restriction.

[yaw_damper]

I was maintenance dipl. eng. in TU154 fleet. This aircraft has the following chain of controls:
From the Control Column mechanically to the upper left end of an ''H'' shaped mechanism witch is ground tied on structure with the lower left leg, the right lower leg is tied to structure through a hydro-electric device named RA-56 controlled by the RESPECTIVE MAIN CHANEL of the CENTRAL STABILIZATION computer (a block on lamps...) it is able to amend until to completely ignore the command from CC or Rudder pedals. From the upper right end of the ''H'' the movement goes to the control piston of the execution hydraulically powered device RP-56 (''R'' stands for rulevoy--->control, ''A'' stands for aftomaticeskyi--->automatic and ''P'' for privod--->device).

There are independently for each ONE OF THE THREE CHANNELS, three independent electro-hydro-mechanical chain of command as described above on each of the three independent hydro&electro systems.
I described the chain of controls, wanting to show that there is mandatory that ALL THIS NINE (3X3) CHANNELS ARE WORKING INTERDEPENDENTLY BUT IN CHAIN meaning that every pearl of the chain IS VITALLY IMPORTANT.

My personal opinion is that a CATASTROPHIC FAILURE in this chain of control has happened.

As Chief of the Technical Crew in OFFICIAL TECHNICAL FLIGHTS authorizing every TU154 in our fleet for normal flights each and every year, we were flying with all RA-56 OFF. At 6000ft with a rudder input, the pilot was able always in~150flts. to control the aircraft back to strait and level flight.
That is the reason why, my opinion, is that the failure was more complex, the A/C in the movie was obviously HARDLY, BALDLY OUT OF CONTROL!!!

Many, many regards to the crew. It is obvious they were pure heroes.
The shots of vodka were of course well greeted and swallowed.

[Capn Bloggs]

it is able to amend until to completely ignore the command from CC or Rudder pedals.
So that's where they got the idea from... :p

[AN2 Driver]

Yaw Damper,

thanks for your input, highly appreciated.

That was the very first thing going through my mind. Why not switch the channels off? I've switched them often enough to know that it takes no effort at all to do that. The question is, is there any way, with an electrical failure, that the yaw channel would not get that message? That is, remain on, even with the switches off?

I am hearing rumours that a automatic control unit (ABSU) suffered a failure of a connector during take off. Does that ring a bell with you or explain something? I don't have my manuals and they are for the M variant anyhow, but I have trouble identifying that unit off memory.

Best regards
AN2 Driver

[Alice025]

In the video with Russian voices they don't say anything special.
I heard a lot of
- "Davay-Davay" - come on, come on! /move it! :o)
- "He goes full-loaded"
- "He's got to try to land, no choice"
- "And how will he land, he'll smash"
- "Hold on, boys, just hold it, hold it!"

"Yest'!" - that's not English "yes" :o)) just sounds similar, it is "it is". Like, I AM, he IS, it IS - "it is", in this case.

That's also what Russian military and Navy say to the command, as a reply
"Yest'!" Like, "as good as done!" "will do it, Sir". eh Tovarisch :o)))))0

[Alice025]

Aye-aye! / Yest'! (soft "t")

[Alice025]

I spotted our plane behaving weird first on BBC.
Live by Pulkovo, was a passenger on TU-s many times, never saw them, ordinary boring things, so I would say "posessed" ! :o))
They better tell all what happened, because a passenger starts looking at them with suspicion, total circus.
Did they install on it a computer? 10 years ago? It seems to do the opposite of what a pilot would want it to do, like, a totally self-will behaving plane. And it seems it took the crew a while to get the angle of how to fight this, eh, sudden phenomena. Our planes are usually sturdy and simple and hand-driven, how can it not respond at all! to what the crew "tells it" to do? It must be all broken inside entirely. But then, if its readings read wrong parameters, it wouldn't take off - in the first place, they'd cut it. So it happened after the take-off.
?
The only thing I heard as a rumour when TU-154 become uncontrollable is when it is tossed in a thunderstorm cloud by an air current higher than it's 11 thousand km, a sudden toss to over 12 thousand km. Either the air becomes too thin for it there or something - and it's a defect in the design - they don't stand sudden tossing upwards over their "ceiling".
But that some pilots manage as know what to do then, but most (ours)are not trained for that occurance.

With wheels - it is because Soviet aerodrome "state standards" :o) allowed for up to 10 centimetre holes between the beton slabs on the run-way :o) there are a lot of small northern aerodromes and old aerodromes, and the requirement to TU designers was that a plane should not mind holes in the runway :o))))))

[ap08]

Either the air becomes too thin for it there or something - and it's a defect in the design - they don't stand sudden tossing upwards over their "ceiling".

When they stall, they tend to enter unrecoverable spins. That's what happened then.

[Runaway Gun]

He will be landing for sure - but how?

Of course he's going to land, but he'll fall apart !!

Just hold it, just hold it. Come on come on come on...

Good good good. Just guess it, guess it. Yest! Well done etc...

[PhamousPhotographer]

One of the best flying displays I've seen for yearsReminded me of a Dennis Kenyon circuit?

[pattern_is_full]

Glad to hear from yaw-damper et al - I was hoping we'd get some experienced -154 systems input.

A question for any pilot experienced with fuselage-mounted engines - that close to the centerline, can they deliver much useful yaw control using differential thrust?

[Doodlebug]

Going by the healthy dose of rudder needed on V1 cuts or OEI missed approaches on fuselage-mounted types I should think differential thrust control should be possible.

[Walder]

pattern_is_full

A question for any pilot experienced with fuselage-mounted engines - that close to the centerline, can they deliver much useful yaw control using differential thrust?



No. Only a little change in yaw. (B727 experience)

Walder:p

[ZeBedie]

Going by the healthy dose of rudder needed on V1 cuts or OEI missed approaches on fuselage-mounted types

It may have seemed that way, but you were giving a healthy dose of a much smaller rudder on your DC9/1-11/etc compared to a 737 rudder.

[rogatol]

An2 driver,

ABSU Ra-56s may easily be disconnected with just minor effect for flight stability.
RP-56 are in fact boosters and their failure results in a complete inability to control the aircraft.

[AN2 Driver]

Thanks Rogatol.

[pattern_is_full]

"Roger" and thanks to D, W, and Z.

The reason I asked is that this crew obviously had some limited directional control - they were able to "bias" the heading, even through the constant rolling, to eventually get lined up with the runway.

If I followed the videos right, a right 270 back over the airport, two left 90s to turn approximately downwind and base, apparently not able to make a third left 90 to final in time, so another right 270 for lineup.

Some - but not much - yaw control via 1 and 3 engine thrust would fit with that picture. Would love to find out what really happened - control techniques as well as what broke.

[rogatol]

Commander of the Russian Airforce told to the press today that control system failure was the cause. Preflight procedures and checks were properly performed, but the failure was technically impossible to discover until the aircraft was airborne. The crew is to be rewarded.
I just wonder what could fail in such a way that it was impossible to check it on the ground? Preflight SOP implies a rather profound controls check including trims, autopilot and manual steering checks.

[proxus]

I just wonder what could fail in such a way that it was impossible to check it on the ground? Preflight SOP implies a rather profound controls check including trims, autopilot and manual steering checks.

Maybe a faulty yaw damper system which becomes active when Air/Ground logic tells it that the plane is now airborne... Just a thought.

P

[SKI]

Imagine trying to do that in a A320...I think not!...these Russian pilots fantastic!

[Capetonian]

http://travel.iafrica.com/flights/725663.html
Russia probes dancing jet
Thu, 05 May 2011 2:10

Russian military prosecutors launched an investigation on Wednesday after an amateur video captured a defence ministry jet lurching terrifyingly out of control in skies close to Moscow.

Videos of the Tupolev jet posted on YouTube by witnesses show the plane twisting from side to side uncontrollably before pilots manage to land it safely at a military aerodrome outside Moscow.

"The military prosecutors have launched a probe which should establish the reasons for the mid-air incident that almost led to an aviation disaster," a spokesman for the chief military prosecutor's office told the RIA Novosti news agency on Wednesday.

The Tu-154 plane, dating back to the 1960s, was dubbed the "dancing plane" by bloggers.

The spokesman for the chief military prosecutor's office told RIA Novosti that the plane's steering system had malfunctioned and praised the pilots for managing to land safely in a built-up area.

"During a test flight, the steering system broke down on the TU-154B-2 plane belonging to the Defence Ministry's 800th air base," the spokesman said.

"Thanks to the great professionalism and supreme skill of the pilots, the crew managed to land on the second attempt at Chkalovsk aerodrome, avoiding casualties among the airforce and the local population."

Disaster in the sky

The ageing Tupolev 154 planes, first flown in 1968 and used by Aeroflot until 2009, have been involved in a number of air accidents in recent years.

The aircraft's last major fatal crash was on April last year, when a Tu-154 carrying Polish president Lech Kaczynski and other top officials came down in fog near the Russian city of Smolensk.

In September a Tu-154 plane made a miraculous emergency landing on a derelict airstrip in the remote Komi region after its electrical systems failed midflight.

This year, the spectacular display of Russian military aviation that usually accompanies the Victory Day parade on Red Square on May 9 has been cancelled, according to media reports, in an apparent cost-cutting measure.

[Alice025]

Komandir's name - Jury Rodionov, age 38 or 39. Nothing else is known of the crew. Journalists search for him but the avia-base replies "Rodionov took a holiday" :o) The plane is in the same air-base in Chkalovsk, various commissions are visiting it.
TU-s mechanics across Russia are said to be crawling over full TU insides checking their planes. In alarm.Only they don't know what to look for.
There are some theories that there are 2 wires in TU154 planes marked same colour, and they could have been mixed up. As the plane spent 10 yrs outdoor under snow rain what not, various parts were extracted out of it for other, acting planes, and that the same parts were installed in it again, borrowed from other planes. That's whenn the two wires could have been mixed up. Or that the contacts went off, during the take-off.
The plane went at 400km/hr speed during this "dancing" time.
In the Russian aviation blog someone, acquainted with the crew, said that the crew's impressions during the flight were that the every taking of the "wheel" resulted in the opposite direction. So they gave up on the wheel and flew the plane without.

[Capn Bloggs]

the crew's impressions during the flight were that the every taking of the "wheel" resulted in the opposite direction.
This scenario was raised in an aviation quiz I went to years ago. The solution was to lean into the middle of the cockpit and fly using the inboard horns of the control wheels: left hand on right prong of left wheel, right hand on left prong of right wheel. This will result in the aircraft doing what you expect, even though the wheels themselves are moving in the opposite direction.

Do not try this in an Airbus! :}

[b8361811]

A few years ago, there was an incident with a cross-wired sidestick in an A320: http://www.tc.gc.ca/media/documents/ca-publications/2_2004_1.pdf

In that case however, the FO was able to fly the plane normally from his side.

[Machinbird]

There are some theories that there are 2 wires in TU154 planes marked same colour, and they could have been mixed up. As the plane spent 10 yrs outdoor under snow rain what not, various parts were extracted out of it for other, acting planes, and that the same parts were installed in it again, borrowed from other planes. That's whenn the two wires could have been mixed up.
Cannibals at work.:( Very dangerous & wasteful of manpower, but probably necessitated by an austere financial environment. The aircraft was just a wheeled parts bin. Parts available for the taking, no formal control. Then came more operational necessity and they needed a complete aircraft-with interesting results!:rolleyes:

[mnttech]

This scenario was raised in an aviation quiz I went to years ago. The solution was to lean into the middle of the cockpit and fly using the inboard horns of the control wheels: left hand on right prong of left wheel, right hand on left prong of right wheel. This will result in the aircraft doing what you expect, even though the wheels themselves are moving in the opposite direction.

Wow, I have never heard of that one. Thanks Capt Bloggs. Great idea, wish I had a simulator to try it in right about now.
I wonder if they had two cables, i.e. control cables (wire) crossed? Maybe they are coated different colors.

[Reinhardt]

Guys ... virtually nobody so far spoke of Dutch Roll.

For me it's a perfect display of this phenomon (and nicely undamped)

Something sure : as rudder inputs (careful and incremental) are used in experimental flight test to enter dutch roll, the answer is simple : don't use rudder to get out of it !! try with ailerons instead.
Now it's another story if rudder is the only control left .... then pilots will try their best.
A failed yaw damper will not help.
Now with functional controls - and probably even with a working YD, you will get this show with a pilot fighting like hell on the rudder, with no idea of what it's all about.
Or you will have a structural failure - especially if you perform full rudder eversals in succesion, for which no aircraft has ever been certified (test pilots are not suicidal)
As somebody said, the Hunter in approach configuration (gear and flaps down) could exhibit a wonderful and virtually undamped dutch roll.....

Typical of swept wings of old designs - and the Tu-154 has a big angle of them ....

A big problem in the airline sindustry is "experienced" pilots (thousands of hours on autopilot, reading the newspapers) considered that in case of turbulence, departure, excursion from normal parameters, they have to use rudder because for them it means "for the big boys" which they think they are.
Airliners are lost on a regular basis all over the world for that.

Dont'use rudder - Dont'use rudder - Dont'use rudder - Dont'use rudder ....

(except for crosswind landings, or air combat at slow speed, or being the tanker to stay aligned ...)

[mary meagher]

Coordinated use of rudder is required in gliders to counteract adverse yaw effect of the ailerons.

Stubby or swept wing aircraft use rudder for steering while taxying on the ground.

[MrBernoulli]

Having personally flown swept wing, T-tail jets similar to this aircraft, it appears to me that the Dutch-roll action (the aircraft's speed is too slow for true Dutch roll?) may be just be caused by a aileron-to-rudder cross-tie (normally active used in the lower end of the speed range) that is out of sync and/or reversed. That is what it looks like in the video sequence.

However, there seem to be several folk here with Tupolev hands-on experience, and their insight is useful. I look forward to finally hearing th official verdict!:ooh:

[vovachan]

Finally some official info -

according to the reported results of the investigation the incident was caused by the flight engineer mis-connecting one of the elements of the automatic on-board flight control system to the power supply.

[AN2 Driver]

From what I hear not the Flight Engineer on board but a Ground Engineer before the flight. Appears to be a translation/transmittal problem between the reports and the press, who were indicating the FE to be responsible. However, the connections involved point towards maintenance action on the ground and were not accessible (or reversible) by the FE.

[vovachan]

Interesting details emerging - it turns out the tech used common sense and connected a green wire to a green wire and red to red. Big mistake! The polarity needs to be reversed. Go figure...:confused::confused:

[ap08]

Truly a marvel of Soviet engineering.

[Neptunus Rex]

There was a fatal accident to a Tu 154 in Xian, China in 1992. From the Aviation Safety Network report:

The aircraft broke-up in flight and crashed about ten minutes after takeoff.

PROBABLE CAUSE: Auto-pilot induced oscillations caused the aircraft to shake violently. It appeared that the autopilot yaw-channel had been connected to the bank control and the bank-channel to the yaw controls. This was done the previous evening 'in the field' rather than in a workshop.

[Alice025]

There was an interview with the crew, taken by КП (Komsomolskaya Pravda :o) newspaper,

the Capt. referred to "two similar accidents in the TU history" - one in China - as noted above - and one sorry forgot where else.
But then the Capt. added he is not sure that's the same bug, as "both those two flights were in auto-pilot mode - while we were not!"

Then he said, naturally, "the commission will sort it out"

And separately noticed it could be those 3 wires set - red, green and yellow, connected reasonably, "while the factory must have planned that someone connects them not according to colour but according to the manual book" "it is very mis-leading and a protest was sent to the maker pointing out a normal person does not deliberately colour wires same colour which one wants NOT to be connected!!!"

But about causes he spoked briefly "commission" etc. their matter
Mostly about his impressions :o))))))) of the dis-obedient plane on hands.
That they wanted to go back home at once :o) but managed only from the third attempt. Apparently it only lasted 13 minutes, during which time they did 3 landing attempts, intense 13 minutes.

He said what scared him is all the devices kept showing that all goes OK - before the take-off and during the mad flight.

The "bort-engineer" crew member was saying he only watched the engines that they shouldn't save god stop was focused on that.

[Alice025]

It is good they didn't blame the crew as often happens, for ex in the same newspaper was an opposite example, of Russian sub that began hushing absent fire on board, by some automatic system, and many got poisoned by the fumes. During trials, the ship was built by order for India. The only one under criminal court hearings 2yrs later is still the Captain - absolutely no other suspects :o)
Though there is in the case his report that the fire-extinguishing computer system switches on and off as it likes, "in the condition the vessel is - it poses deadly threat to the crew if it goes at sea". The factory maker read that report and ordered trials :o)
Plus the fire hushing mixture was dissolved with smth cheap and stupid, 1/3 - in transit to the sub (read stolen. documented) - which caused poisonous fumes.

The only thing that saves the head of that Captain so far is Indian buyer, who says they won't take the sub unless that captain who brought the ship home altogether in spite of dear factory mis-deeds goes in the "package" together with their dear purchase.

[glojo]

What an amazing example of superb flying skills.

I tend to respect folks that when proved to be wrong hold up their hands and apologise!!

Might I respectfully suggest all those that thought the video was fake or accused that aircrew of 'show boating' now reflect and perhaps recognise that amazing act of skill for what it was and admit they were incorrect in their assumptions?

John

[JammedStab]

From what I hear not the Flight Engineer on board but a Ground Engineer before the flight. Appears to be a translation/transmittal problem between the reports and the press, who were indicating the FE to be responsible. However, the connections involved point towards maintenance action on the ground and were not accessible (or reversible) by the FE.

Interesting details emerging - it turns out the tech used common sense and connected a green wire to a green wire and red to red. Big mistake! The polarity needs to be reversed. Go figure...:confused::confused:

Posts on a newer thread about a different accident has provided some info about this and related incidents. The second link has further links to pictures of the misconnection versus proper connection.

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/588730-tu154-out-sochi-missing-20.html#post9653471

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/588730-tu154-out-sochi-missing-20.html#post9654842