Crew error named as cause of An-26 disaster in Kamchatka

The crash of the An-26 aircraft in Kamchatka on July 6 was due to a violation by the crew of the approach scheme. This is stated in information Rosaviatsiya on flight safety and the so-called subsequent report, to which refers Kommersant.

The Palana airfield, where the An-26 was supposed to land, is located in a mountainous area. The aircraft crew had to fly past the airfield, turn around over the sea and only then go to land. It was carried out in difficult weather conditions with low clouds.

After passing over the airfield, the An-26 began to deviate from the course. Before the turn over the sea, the Palana dispatcher informed the pilots of an error: they were performing maneuvers five kilometers north of the route. The dispatcher forbade them to descend, but they ignored her warning. Shortly thereafter, the plane crashed into the top of a cliff at a speed of 340 km / h 11 kilometers from the airfield. The wreckage of the aircraft, along with the bodies of the pilots and passengers, fell into the sea.

The An-26 recorders, the MSRP-12-96 flight parameters recorder and the MC-61B tape recorder installed in the cockpit, were also submerged. So far, only the so-called tape drive mechanism has been found from the parametric recorder. The information from it is now trying to restore the employees of the Interstate Aviation Committee, conducting a technical investigation of the disaster. So far, it is known that the MSRP has not registered the mandatory release of flaps and landing gear when landing.

One of the participants in the investigation told Kommersant that the pilots were clearly “lost” in space and ignored both the instrument readings and the controller’s warnings. “I cannot find any reasonable justification for such actions of the crew,” the source said.

An-26 aircraft performing a flight from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to Palana, crashed July 6. Its fragments were found near the village and in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. There were 28 people on board – 22 passengers and six crew members. None of them survived.